On October 21, 2025, the High Court will finally hear Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s RM150 million defamation suit against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Already postponed twice and reassigned to its third judge, the trial is more than a personal clash between two old rivals. It is a reckoning laced with irony: Mahathir, the very man who hollowed out Malaysia’s judiciary, now seeks its protection to salvage his legacy. The case stems from Anwar’s remarks at the 2023 PKR congress, where he accused a “leader of 22 years and 22 months” of enriching his family. Mahathir’s fury—demanding damages and a retraction—rings hollow in light of the political economy he engineered. For decades, he presided over a system where politics and business blurred into state patronage, elevating a Malay elite that included his own children, whose fortunes now run into the hundreds of millions. For Mahathir to present this as slander rather than an open truth is less about justice than about rewriti...