Who’s responsible for the Tanjung Piai loss?

COMMENT | Recently, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed stated that he is entertaining the thought of reshuffling his cabinet. Apparently, this is his reaction to the results of the Tanjung Piai by-election.

In case you forgot, Pakatan Harapan’s Karmaine Sardini (Bersatu) lost to Barisan Nasional’s Wee Jeck Seng (MCA) by more than 15,000 votes. This is the biggest margin any candidate has won in that constituency since 2004. Harapan had won that seat in the last general election.

Initially, Mahathir said that the results could be his fault but he “couldn’t know for sure”. This came after several Harapan MPs said that he needed to shoulder the blame for the loss. This would be similar to the time he called for Najib Razak’s resignation when Barisan Nasional won by a drastically reduced majority in the 2013 general election.

I guess it’s different when Mahathir is prime minister, huh? But then again, this is just a small by-election and not the national general election. Fine. That could just be an acceptable reason as to why he doesn’t need to resign. But the responsibility still needs to be accounted for.

It is obvious the voters want a change in the leadership, or at least, to what has been happening in the administration since Harapan took over the government. And the issue of a cabinet reshuffle was actually raised at a supreme council meeting after the by-election...