00:00A former Deputy Unity Minister has criticised Dr. Mahathir Mohamad for claiming that UMNO had all the Malays when he was at the party's helm,
00:09calling the remarks disingenuous and accusing him of selective memory.
00:13Tilyanker said Mahathir himself had contributed to Malay fragmentation,
00:17both during his 22-year reign as party president and prime minister and in the ensuing years.
00:23He noted that in the late 1980s, the party was infamously divided into Team A and Team B,
00:30leading Tengku Razali Hamzah to challenge Mahathir for the presidency in 1987.
00:35Tee said the split widened when those aligned with Tengku Razali were sacked from Mahathir's cabinet and left UMNO to form Semangat 46.
00:43He added that Mahathir's decision to sack Anwar Ibrahim as the deputy prime minister in 1998 drove the biggest wedge between the Malays.
00:51He recalled that Mahathir later formed Bersatu to remove Najib Razak from power
00:56and went on to establish Pejuang after falling out with Bersatu President Muhyiddin Yassin following the Sheraton move,
01:03which triggered the collapse of Mahathir's Pakatan Harapan government.
01:07Tee said it was ironic that Mahathir was now talking about the importance of Malay unity,
01:13given that his actions had inadvertently affected race relations as various Malay-based parties
01:18ramped up race and religious issues and rhetoric in an attempt to win over the fractured Malay voter base.
01:25Panyu Zhou, FMT.
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