KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s collaboration with political rivals and civil activists to oust Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has rattled the Umno grassroots.

Seeing their once-revered icon at the same table with former nemeses such as DAP’s Lim Kit Siang has led to cries of betrayal, prompting one Umno leader yesterday to lead a protest of hundreds against Dr Mahathir whom they now called a race traitor.

And while political analysts who spoke to Malay Mail Online said the current atmosphere made it too difficult to gauge if Dr Mahathr’s gambit will pay off, they concurred it was one that carried a clear risk of alienating the Malay nationalist party.

“In general, it’s too much for Umno members to accept Tun’s collaboration with the opposition.

“They cannot imagine Tun can go that far, collaborate with current enemies Lim Kit Siang and Anwar Ibrahim, so then you can see there’s an issue of desperation and issue of we need to come to a different level of game,” Dr Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) told Malay Mail Online.

On March 4, Dr Mahathir banded together with other Barisan Nasional (BN) veterans, opposition politicians and human rights activists and formed a bipartisan initiative they dubbed “Save Malaysia” to pressure Najib to resign from office.

Mohd Azizuddin said the 90-year-old who served as prime minister for 22 years still holds immense clout within Umno even after quitting the Malay nationalist party, but the collaboration was a “wrong move” because many from Dr Mahathir’s camp are now distancing themselves from him.

He added that the Dr Mahathir-led campaign may not succeed because Umno members, like those of other parties, tend to follow a feudalistic tradition and remain loyal to whichever leader still holds power.

“Previously Tun pressured from within [Umno] but he failed because one by one, leaders are removed; Muhyiddin, his son, so the feeling is he has no other choice but to pressure Najib from outside the party,” the UUM academic said.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin is still Pagoh Umno division leader but was removed last month as Umno deputy president, sending him further into the exile he has been in since he was dropped as deputy prime minister last July.

Mohd Azizuddin said that Dr Mahathir’s move also carries an additional risk of possibly going out of control and costing Barisan Nasional the next general election, further reducing the likelihood that he will gain backing from Umno members who may otherwise be sympathetic.

Political scientist Professor Faisal Hazis said Dr Mahathir was forced to “gamble” with the opposition after gaining no traction in Umno with his campaign against Najib as most of its division chiefs today back the party president.

The Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) academic said it was bad strategy for Dr Mahathir to attempt to force Najib’s removal from outside Umno in contrast to the removal of his successor Tun Abdullah Badawi though a buildup of pressure within the party.

However, Faisal also suggested that Dr Mahathir may have calculated the possibility of BN losing the next general election.

“Maybe he foresees the next election, if BN is still under Najib, they might lose anyway. Maybe he is still taking that calculation, [that] maybe [he] can form some sort of partnership or cooperation with the opposition, [that] there might be some sort of coalition government,” the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia academic told Malay Mail Online when contacted.

Faisal said that for Dr Mahathir to succeed in his goal, the Kedah-born needs to change his plan of keeping BN in power and instead work to convince 5 per cent of its supporters in marginal seats to vote for the opposition.

“The only way to change Najib is [through] change of government. Other than that, I don’t see any possibility that Najib might be removed,” the UKM lecturer said.

Unlike the other two, Prof James Chin said Dr Mahathir’s collaboration did not smack of desperation, but was part of a wider design to make his son and former Kedah mentri besar Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir the country’s prime minister one day.

“Mahathir never does anything without calculations. He needs the opposition for the numbers since he is losing ground among the Malay community,” the director of University of Tasmania’s Asia Institute told Malay Mail Online in an email interview.

But even Chin was sceptical that Dr Mahathir’s machinations will work.

“For ordinary Umno members they are angry and confused, for the simple reason that they have been told since independence that DAP is about destroying Malay special rights and getting rid of the Malay sultans and Umno can only protect the Malays.

“Now Mahathir is singing a different tune and I am not sure they can take it,” he said.

Chin said Dr Mahathir’s reputation of adopting an “anything goes as long as I get my way politically” approach will return to bite him in the long-run as he will be forever tagged a hypocrite for teaming up with political adversaries to topple the prime minister.“The thing now is numbers, can Mahathir rally the rural Malays? If not, Najib survives,” he said.