Mahathir's inevitable parting of ways with everybody else

Yesterday's news

Bangsar, 23 May 2017: What do you see in this picture? Me, I can't explain the sadness that I feel every time I look at this picture that appeared on the front page of the New Straits Times yesterday. And - I can't help it - I've gone back to it scores of times. 

Is Dr Mahathir Mohamad trying to take a photograph with his mobile phone in order to take away the awkwardness or the moment? Or is he hiding his face? If he is doing the selfie, the former PM and longest-serving Umno president would have seen how increasingly desperate his position looked. Lim Kit Siang on his right and Azmin Ali on his left are both holding placards supporting the jailed Anwar Ibrahim as the country's next Prime Minister.  Many were given the impression that the two were Mahathir's pals since the day he quit Umno to form his own party in the hope of helping them - the Opposition - bring down PM Najib Razak. If anything, they are closer to fixing Mahathir. Look closer now, and you'll see the two men slowly turning their backs on the Old Man! 

And that's what they will continue to do from now until the general election. Dr M knows that, surely. This is Anwar's game, it's not one that Mahathir can hope to win. Anwar may well not be the next PM  as lawyer Art Haron has brilliantly argued (Anwar for PM? PKR should think again). But it won't be Muhyiddin Yassin and the son Mukhriz will not rise, either. 

Nobody wants to say it yet, but the end is near for Mahathir dream of hijacking the Opposition's 14th GE agenda and making it his own. That's what I see in this picture. That's what it tells me.