Remember when Mahathir claimed that the government really did not want to withdraw from International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd) but they had to because “someone” created confusion?

From reportage - stressing that the withdrawal was not because the treaty was harmful to the nation, Mahathir claimed that there was an attempt to smear the government's name and to engage the country's royalty to sign an order against him, which move may have involved some members of the royal family.

And of course, who could forget this juicy tidbit from his press statement: 

“Jadi kita punya keputusan kabinet (our cabinet’s decision) this morning is that we will withdraw our ratification of the Statute of Rome kerana (because of) confusion, bukan kerana (not because) we believe it is going to be bad for us but because of the confusion created by one particular person who wants to be free to beat up people and things like that.

“And if he beats up people again, I will send the police to arrest him, I don't care who he is.”

When Mahathir went up against the royal institution back in the day, he used the instruments of the state to make his case.

As reported by the Independent - “In the meantime, the government is waging all-out war on the rulers.

“Civil servants have been told to seek the prime minister's permission before seeing the king, state governments are under orders to refuse business favours to their rulers.

“For the past month, page two of the government-controlled New Straits Times has been devoted to the sultans’ excesses: how Sultan Ismail Petra of Kelantan, for example, imported 30 duty-free luxury cars rather than the seven allowed and how he got away from customs officials in a Lamborghini Diablo on the pretext of test-driving it.

“The RM200 million cost of maintaining the rulers has been lavishly detailed, including the hospital wards kept for their exclusive use, and the RM9.3 million spent on new cutlery and bedspreads for the king, which the newspaper said could have built two hospitals or 46 rural clinics, or 46 primary schools.

“Religious teachers have been encouraged to comment on the un-Muslim behaviour of the supposed guardians of Islam.”

Slaying sacred cows

And of course, that other great protector of Malays rights, Hadi, has shown us what he thinks of the royal institution.

He thumbed his nose at the sultan of Terengganu and nothing happened to him.

“I will continue my sermons as per usual in surau and mosques."

Hadi said that in Islam there is no separation between politics and religion.

It basically means that as the gatekeeper of religion, he alone decides which political edicts he and his brethren follow.

To stop Anwar, PN and PAS are willing to slay sacred cows of Malay-Muslim institutions because as I have argued before, these are the agendas of the deep Islamic state and the religious industrial complex.

This is not about whether you support the royal institution or not. This is about how these defenders of race and religion, in reality, have no respect for the institutions they claim to champion.

These are the same people who would use the royal institution as a hammer to whack recalcitrant Malays and of course, the non-Malays - whom they claim are disrespecting the royal institution - the Malays, and of course, Islam.

This is about the hypocrisy of the Malay political elite who use the royal institution as a cudgel to bash anyone who supports democratic imperatives but has no problem disrespecting the institution when it suits their purposes.

Do not for one moment think that there is any democratic or people-oriented agenda in these attacks against one of the tiang seri (pillars) of Umno.

Do you really think that Mahathir and PN's agenda are in any way about institutions or returning power to the people? No, this is about the Malay elites squabbling over power.

And the losers will always be the majority polity.