As the former prime minister (twice) said that because rural Malay constituencies are given disproportionate weightage, a Malay-based party – Bersatu which he was leading at that time – was needed because the multiracial approach of the opposition has thus far failed.

What I want to know is, now that Pakatan Harapan is in power, will this issue be resolved and will we no longer have to be at the mercy of rural Malay voters and hence race-based politics?

Do the reformists in Umno understand that making sure the machinations of someone like Mahathir, who apparently taught them how to hate and, through the flawed electoral system how to hold on to power, means repudiating this system? I do not think so.

Do you think someone like Khairy Jamaluddin, who is not the worst, mind you, is interested in something like this? Why would he? Is anyone in Harapan interested in something like this?

The reason why this country has been able to maintain the facade of being a “moderate” Islamic country is the urban demographic and policy decisions that enabled relative economic success, despite all the leakages. In other words, there was political will that this country should not turn into just another failed Islamic state.

And look at how the youth vote turned out. While everyone was pinning their hopes on this demographic and for some odd reason, Muda, I was telling anyone who would listen, that PAS was eager for the youth to vote.

They were prepared for them in terms of transmitting propaganda and foundational ideas – Mahathir’s ideas which the religious bureaucracy adapted and changed to fit their purposes – that made them vote for a racist and religious coalition which turned the tables on conventional political analysis.

Of course, these grand minions of the old maverick who slavishly imbibe what these Malay uber alles parties were dishing out, forget that the old maverick also asked them to learn from the Chinese who they were taught to despise.

He said, "If we take out the Chinese and all that they have built and own, there will be no small or big towns in Malaysia, there will be no business and industry, there will be no funds for the subsidies, support and facilities for the Malays. Learn from the Chinese."

Mahathir said this in 2002, back when he was still prime minister and attempted to galvanise the base against, well, anyone who stood in his way. Now, these same minions and the minions they spawned have pushed him out of the way.

And it is laughable. Bersatu, PAS and Umno, as Zahid rightly pointed out, have worked with DAP. DAP was so sycophantic to the old maverick, but it wasn’t enough. DAP was so sycophantic to former premier and Perikatan Nasional chairperson Muhyiddin Yassin, but it too was not enough.

DAP were so sycophantic to PAS – even flirting with PAS for all dogma – but it was not enough. At each turn, DAP partisans argued that the various permutations of these Malay uber alles parties were different - but the reality is that all these Malay uber alles parties desired was dominance over Malay polity as measured by electoral power and used DAP to reverse their political fortunes.

If there is a central historical narrative as to why this country failed, it would not be because of corruption. It would be that our public institutions, our private and public spaces were overwhelmed by toxic religiosity that enabled a class of potentates free from the sanctions of secular laws – unlike the tenuous grip such laws now have on the ruling class.

All the creations of Mahathir, those minions who for so long sucked on the teat of public coffers, who ran public institutions as private fiefdoms, have become disparate and fractured. The old maverick played a major part in this. The Malay establishment played a major part in this. And finally, when it came to Mahathir, he was rejected by his creations, his minions and most importantly, the Umno base which finally saw him as the naked emperor.

Now, with a theocratic alliance threatening to undo everything Mahathir created, the remnants of his minions cling on to power because of Harapan.

This is the punchline to the old maverick's final joke.