PETALING JAYA – Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad appears to have buried the hatchet with former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin over their decades-long rivalry, which started when both men were in the Umno party in the early 2000s.

“I am currently in the healing process (with Tun Dr Mahathir),” the former Umno Youth chief joked during his interview with Dr Mahathir in the latest episode of Mr Khairy’s political podcast Keluar Sekejap on Monday.

Mr Khairy and Dr Mahathir had regularly clashed when the former was an aide to Tun Abdullah Badawi, who succeeded Dr Mahathir to become prime minister from 2004 to 2008.

In his interview, Mr Khairy described the friction between Dr Mahathir and Mr Abdullah’s administration as differences in opinion over policies such as the proposed “crooked” bridge between Johor Bahru and Singapore and the sale of Malaysian-owned motorcycle company MV Agusta.

Mr Abdullah is Mr Khairy’s father-in-law.

In his latest memoir, A Doctor In The House, Dr Mahathir also wrote that he was disappointed with Mr Abdullah for cancelling rail operator KTMB’s double-tracking project.

Dr Mahathir’s anger with Mr Abdullah led the former to publicly criticise his successor and push for his resignation.

He had also accused Mr Khairy of having an outsized influence on Mr Abdullah and branded Mr Khairy and his team as the “fourth-floor boys” after their suite of offices in the Prime Minister’s Department.

“To this day, that label has still stuck with me and I hope you can help wash it off,” Mr Khairy joked in their interview, which was aired on Monday on YouTube.

When asked by Mr Khairy why “didn’t you like me”, Dr Mahathir said that Mr Khairy had contested against his son for the Umno Youth chief’s post.

“People told me that your mother-in-law had campaigned for you,” added Dr Mahathir.

Mr Khairy had contested against Dr Mahathir’s son, Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mohamad, and won his first term as Umno Youth chief in 2005.

However, the usually candid Dr Mahathir declined to elaborate on the second part of that statement – that Mr Abdullah’s first wife, the late Datuk Seri Endon Mahmud, had campaigned for Mr Khairy.

Dr Mahathir recounted how he was ambivalent about Mr Abdullah from the very beginning, despite choosing the latter to succeed him as the prime minister in 2003.

When Dr Mahathir was first challenged as the Umno president in 1987 by former finance minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Mr Abdullah had supported Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh even though he was part of Dr Mahathir’s Cabinet.

Mr Abdullah would subsequently be elected to the party’s Supreme Council and become one of three Umno vice-presidents; and it was because of this that Dr Mahathir went on to appoint the latter to the Cabinet.

“So when the post of deputy prime minister was vacant, I made him the DPM with the realisation that he will be PM even though he had supported Tengku Razaleigh,” said Dr Mahathir.

But within two weeks after becoming prime minister, Mr Abdullah cancelled the bridge with Singapore and the double-tracking project, even though he had promised Dr Mahathir that these projects would be continued.

“So I was disappointed. He promised. So I thought to myself, Abdullah still hates me but he promised and he did not fulfil his promises. That was what made me disappointed,” said Dr Mahathir.

In response, Mr Khairy defended the policies of the Abdullah administration.

“In defence, despite whatever policy differences we had, there was never any criminal element (during Mr Abdullah’s government). I myself have been investigated and to this day, there has been nothing criminal,” said Mr Khairy. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK