COMMENT | Muhyiddin, it’s time to cut and cut cleanly

COMMENT | Many will surely remember these words of US Senator Paul Laxalt to Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos in the dying hours of his presidency that fateful night on Feb 25, 1986.

“Mr President, I think you should cut and cut cleanly. I think the time has come,” Laxalt responded to Marcos when the latter asked the senator over the phone, “Should I step down? Senator, what do you think?”

It was 3am in Manila and a beleaguered and desperate Marcos was attempting his utmost to cling on to power. But to Washington and then-president Ronald Reagan, it was clear that Marcos had lost the support of Filipinos and Corazon Aquino had won the election.

It was at that poignant moment that Marcos seemed to realise that his downfall was inevitable. People’s power had won in the Philippines.

“He was hanging on,” Laxalt said. “He was looking for a life preserver. I sensed he was a desperate man clutching at straws.”

Somehow today, I have this strange feeling of putting Muhyiddin Yassin in the same shoes as the late Marcos in 1986. Perhaps, students of political science could draw some comparisons too.

The scale and tension of the uprising during the era of the Philippines dictator might not be the same but there are many other similarities.

Top of it all is Muhyiddin’s ...