Remember when Muhyiddin turned on Najib in 2015? Here’s what happened.

So this article originally came out in May 2015, almost FIVE years ago. A lot can change in five days let alone five years, as you’ve probably seen from the political drama of the past week or so that led to Mahathir’s resignation and eventual rise of a certain Muhyiddin Yassin as Malaysia’s new Prime Minister. And one such thing that did seem to change a lot is political allegiances.

In case you didn’t know, Muhyiddin had been a member of UMNO since the 1970s, but it was only in mid-2016 that he was sacked from the party for breaking their rules and attacking party leadership. That ‘attack on party leadership’ seemed to have started when this video surfaced a year before that, depicting the then-Deputy PM apparently going off against his then-UMNO President and Prime Minister Najib Razak in some secret-ish UMNO meeting:

Why secret meeting? #CILISOSclickbait Well, we can kinda justify it because….

• No media were invited – we’re still not sure who shot the video, although the person who uploaded it is named Firdaus Abdullah (apparently ex-NST editor) who is apparently a Mitsubishi fan, and a lover of Scorpions Winds of Change.
• Najib wasn’t there – Malaysiakini reports it’s some sorta training event in Janda Baik, but what sorta training had UMNO’s leaders such as Ahmad Maslan and Zahid be invited for?
• The only recording of it is on a rather lousy phone-camera. Even the closed door UMNO General assembly has cameramen from NST.

Muhyiddin of course eventually founded PPBM, got together with his friends at Pakatan Harapan to win GE14, and then became an unwilling Prime Minister at the cost of Harapan’s dissolution. But let’s take a trip thru the DeLorean for a bit and go back to 2015, to see the start of Muhyiddin’s end in UMNO. In fact, let’s take a look at that speech’s startling comments that got him in trouble in the first place.

1. “Itu pilihan UMNO. Macam pandai, tapi tak pandai” (0:22)

When the phonecam starts running, Muhyiddin has already started, although we don’t know for how long. He starts by asking the crowd a question, but because there isn’t an answer, he continues with a joke about the crowd with “muka macam cekodik (cekodoks?). He later repeats this line “You must be intelligent, but also SMA” twice. The pronunciation is very strange. Ros?

2. “Kalau ini tidak diatasi dengan segera, ia akan jadi the last straw on the camel’s back” (0:50)

Things quickly get serious after that, talking about issues that aren’t specified, and saying that they need to be solved quickly. When asked by Datuk Radzi to clarify, he repeats “Inila yang terakhir la. Kalau tidak diselesaikan, inila yang akan membawa kita ke bawah. So kalau tak settle ni, aku yang akan jadi pengarah pilihanraya ini!”

3. “Are you going to be the last one that hands over the power to the opposition?” (0:70)

This was a question he claims people keep asking him. “Saya tak boleh jawab“. He then jokes about people asking if he’ll jump. “Jangan pulak masuk PAS“, he jokes. These UMNO meets sure seem fun 🙂

He then assures the crowd that he won’t leave the ‘leadership’, that he has nothing to hide except fear of God, and that because of that he had responsibilities that he cannot run away from.

4. “So I face the bull! I’m not too sure who the bull is….” (2:02)

“Ambik lembu, pegang tanduk dier tu.” These are some of the cute comments we were talking about earlier, which drew laughter from the crowd. Who do you think the bull is, gaiz? 😉

5. “Kalau isu ni tak selesai kita bagi peluang kepada presiden parti, takpe la dia selesai” (2:39)

Finally, he calls out Najib, although not mentioning his name, only as “presiden parti”. He then goes on to say that many people have already voiced out, including “MB” and Zahid who “nak cakap tapi takde masa.”.  He then teases that Zahid will definitely bring it up at the next meeting. More crowd laughter 🙂

He then tempers it by saying he’s not showing his greatness (“kehebatan saya”), or “kebencian kepada pemimpin saya” (!).

“Saya hormat, kerana sebagai manusia… kita kena hormat“.

6. “Sack all those guys, board of 1MDB. Buang mereka!” (3:29)

Halfway through, he starts his tirade about 1MDB. He brings up the shocking RM42 billion figure a few times, with the cameraman even exclaiming… “Fuuuus”. He said that he mentioned this to Najib, that he should sack the guys in the board of 1MDB. At this point, the audience burst out in applause, showing support.

“Buang lah! Pasal mereka yang Perdana Menteri terpaksa menanggung. Kite takde wang lagi.”

At this point, we hear the audience shouting, “Betul! Betul!”, and another person saying, “Sack the president. Sack the president!” To be honest, we’re not sure who this person is referring to – party president, or 1MDB president.

7. “CEO ni… buang. Dan buka saja buang. Panggil polis siasat!” (3:29)

Muhyiddin’s solution… throw the CEO. It seems Tony Pua agrees as well (somewhere else. Not same conference!). Poor CEO Arul Kanda tho… he just joined 5 months ago.

8. “Ambik tindakan, jadi rakyat tengok, ‘Haa, barulah pimpinan kerajaan rasa bertanggungjawab” (5:45)

As he was asking for action, Muhyiddin then did this super-cute dance to enhance the point about this “Beban bringing them down”. We wanna call this Muhyiddin’s Beban Dance™. He clearly seemed upset saying if the company were his, he could not imagine waking up to such a debt.

This speech was the start of the now-defunct Mahathir-Muhyiddin tag team

When the video of Muhyiddin’s speech surfaced online, the 1MDB saga was about to peak. At that point in time, the biggest critic of Najib from his own party was Dr Mahathir (WSJ’s expose on it would only happen weeks after this incident). By going against Najib, Muhyiddin found himself ostracised and eventually sacked, along with Mahathir’s son Mukhriz. They eventually teamed up, founded Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), won GE14 together and were seemingly on good terms… well, until recently of course.

And just like how Najib claimed his blood boiled after seeing Muhyiddin continue to give speeches attacking him, Mahathir now claims that well, he feels betrayed.

“I feel betrayed, mostly by Muhyiddin. He was working on this for a long time, and now he has succeeded.” – Dr M, as quoted by Malaysiakini