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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

I don’t understand the spin. The article doesn’t mention that he was prime minister for more than 20 years previously until halfway through.

By most accounts a decent prime minister. But also a virulent anti-Semite: http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp506.htm

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Because the leader isn't the point; the political parties are. He's a unifying figure for an ethnic-minority and liberal-opposition coalition very different from the one that's ruled the country since independence.

“The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.” - The Prime Minister Elect of Malaysia.

He’s the liberal opposition?

He leads a breakaway party (the Malaysian United Indigenous Party [1]) that jumped over two years ago from the ruling party to the opposition coalition. That party is only a bit over 10% of the coalition that won this election (12 / 113 seats); he's basically a figurehead/placeholder with good name recognition, holding the spot until the leader of the largest party in the coalition (Anwar Ibrahim of the People's Justice Party [2], with 49 of the coalition's seats) finishes the jail sentence for his politically-motivated sodomy charges.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_United_Indigenous_Pa...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Justice_Party_(Mala...

Not him personally, but at least 2 out of the 4 parties are, by Malaysian standards

Mahathir was the Prime Minister who cleaned up the mess George Soros made in 1998, and I'm sure that when he talks about Jews, he means one in particular. That isn't an excuse.

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