PETALING JAYA, May 11 — The ‘Rahman’ prophecy was an amusing, albeit unconventional, way for Malaysians to predict the country’s first six prime ministers.

For the uninitiated, the so-called prophecy, which started circulating around the 1960s and 1970s, predicted that each letter in the word ‘Rahman’ represents the name of Malaysia’s prime ministers: Tunku Abdul Rahman, Abdul Razak Hussein, Hussein Onn, Mahathir Mohamad, Abdullah Badawi and Najib Razak.

Some believe the prophecy would mean the end of Umno.

With the Najib administration’s defeat in the 14th general election (GE14), many believed the Rahman prophecy was fulfilled.

But as one prediction ends, another begins thanks to DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang who said Malaysia will see a new succession of prime ministers with the ‘Mahathir’ prophecy.

Last month, Lim said should Dr Mahathir assume office for the second time, he will subsequently be replaced by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, fulfilling the first two letters in ‘Mahathir’.

Now that Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Muhammad V looks poised to grant Anwar a full pardon, it appears that Lim could be onto something.

The DAP stalwart first wrote about the ‘Mahathir’ prophecy in his blog back in 2009, almost a decade before GE14.

"Making the rounds of the grapevine of Umno delegates and observers at the current Umno General Assembly is talk of a new political prophecy to replace the ‘Rahman’ political prophecy on the first six prime ministers of the country — the ‘Mahathir’ prophecy on the next line of Malaysian prime ministers,” he wrote.

But instead of Dr Mahathir representing the first letter in the prophecy, it was believed that former Umno-deputy-president-turned-PPBM-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin would lead off the acronym.

Guess no one saw that (or the many surprises that we’ve witnessed in the past few days) coming back then.