On November 19, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, 97-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, lost his parliamentary seat in the Malaysian elections. Notably, Mohamad had earlier said if he lost this election, he would take retirement from politics. The people of Malaysia cast their votes on Saturday, with multiple parties contesting in closely fought elections.
Malaysia elections: Mahathir lose ground to poll rivals
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As per reports, the ex-PM failed to defend his Langkawi parliamentary seat. The unofficial count of the votes has indicated that he even lost the deposit as he failed to gain at least 20 percent of the vote share. This is for the first time in more than fifty years that Mahathir has lost an election. He held the Guinness World Record for being the “world’s oldest prime minister” when he took over the position for the second time in 2018. At that time, he was just two months away from turning 93.
Mahathir has served two times as the prime minister of Malaysia for a total of 24 years. During these elections, he trailed the winner from National Alliance by at least 11,000 votes. Notably, since 1969, Mahatir had not lost a single election. This would have been his tenth term as a federal lawmaker if he had won. While speaking to Nikkei Asia, he had vowed to retire from politics if he lost his seat.
On the other hand, Prime Minister aspirant Anwar Ibrahim won the election from the Tambun constituency in northern Perak state. As per the unofficial count, he was leading with 4,100 votes. His party Hope Pact was leading in 64 constituencies, while Muhyiddin-led National Alliance was leading in 39 constituencies. The National Front was reported to be leading on 19 seats.
Mahathir Mohamad had given asylum to Zakir Naik
In 2016, when India charged Islamic preacher and terror sympathiser Zakir Naik with money laundering, he was in Malaysia. At that time, he decided to stay there. In 2019, Zakir Naik was granted permanent residency in Malaysia despite uproar from the public against him. Petitions were launched for his deportation from Malaysia but nothing worked. Mahathir Mohamad was the Prime Minister of Malaysia when Zakir Naik was given permanent residency.
In the same year, there was a bilateral meeting between Malaysia and India in Russia where India sought the extradition of Naik. However, Malaysian authorities denied receiving any such request from their Indian counterparts.
In 2020, when Mahathir was eyeing to become Prime Minister for another term, he was quoted by WION News as saying that Zakir Naik would not be safe in India. He had said that the Malaysian government favoured sending Naik to a country where “he would feel safe”.
On May 13, 2020, the Indian government sent a formal request to the Malaysian government seeking the extradition of Zakir Naik.
Notably, Naik is currently in Qatar and is expected to preach Islam on the sidelines of the FIFA World Cup that kicks off today.
