Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s latest remarks about Malaysia’s football naturalisation scandal were clearly meant to sound like a statesman’s moral warning, a lecture on honesty, integrity, and national shame. But for many Malaysians, it came across as tone-deaf and hypocritical. When Mahathir condemns “powerful individuals who think they are above the law,” he conveniently forgets that his own political career was built on precisely that principle.
It was during Mahathir’s long rule that Malaysia’s judiciary endured one of its darkest episodes. The 1988 judicial crisis, which saw Lord President Tun Salleh Abas and several Supreme Court judges dismissed, marked a turning point in our history. It was Mahathir’s government that eroded judicial independence, punishing judges who dared to rule against the executive. The courts were turned into tools of political convenience, and the damage took decades to repair. For someone who once insisted that “judges must follow government policy,” Mahathir’s newfound outrage over “selective justice” sounds hollow. If anyone taught Malaysia how to bend the law to suit power, it was him.
His indignation over alleged forged documents in football circles also revives memories of a much bigger scandal: “Project IC.” Under Mahathir’s watch, thousands of foreigners in Sabah were allegedly granted Malaysian identity cards to shift the state’s electoral balance. That operation, if fully exposed, would dwarf any football scandal. It sowed distrust, fractured communities, and undermined the very idea of citizenship. The parallels are striking: falsified papers, political manipulation, and a willingness to cheat the system for advantage. The difference is that Mahathir’s version shaped elections, not team line-ups.
In his recent interview with Sinar Daily, Mahathir complained that “some people who have done no wrong are investigated, while those who have done wrong are exempted.” Yet this was the exact playbook of his administration. State institutions, the police, the Attorney General’s Chambers, and the media were all brought to heel. Opposition leaders like Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim were imprisoned, newspapers silenced, critics exiled. The law became a weapon to protect allies and crush enemies. To hear Mahathir now mourning selective enforcement borders on parody. The man who turned political persecution into an art form now speaks as though he were its victim, or its moral authority.
What Mahathir won’t acknowledge is that the “culture of impunity” he denounces today was born under his leadership. He centralised power, rewarded loyalty over integrity, and reduced independent institutions to extensions of the executive. In doing so, he built the very system that allows the powerful to act without consequence. Every scandal that followed, from corruption to fake documents traces its roots to that era. Malaysia’s habit of bending the rules didn’t start with FAM; it started in the corridors of Putrajaya when Mahathir was kingmaker.
No doubt, the allegations of forged birth certificates and falsified records in the football association are shameful. They embarrass the country and insult the athletes who earned their place honestly. But Mahathir’s attempt to present himself as the voice of conscience is hard to take seriously. If he truly wants to see accountability, he should first look in the mirror. For decades, truth and power were whatever he said they were.
Until he owns that legacy, his lectures on integrity will ring empty, another sermon from the man who taught Malaysia how to play by different rules.
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