He said his alliance with Lim had initially caused uneasiness among the electorate, but that the tides had now turned.

“Many of my supporters were uneasy, and my support also took a dive after I became friends with my ‘enemies’.

“But today, people’s perception of me has improved, ever since my cooperation with Kit Siang and Anwar Ibrahim,” he said in his speech to some 1,000 people at the Penang PPBM Hari Raya open house here today.

Mahathir said he first became friends with Lim when the DAP veteran threw his support behind the Deklarasi Rakyat (DR) movement to save Malaysia.

“Although Kit Siang and I are friends, we used to be enemies before.

“But when it came to the DR, from the rakyat … parties and NGOs, we noticed that leaders had come to support the DR movement.

“This is the unity we achieved because of our similar objectives.”

Mahathir also lamented that the current “leader”, although the son of a great prime minister, Abdul Razak Hussein, was unlike his father.

When asked to comment on claims that he was the “puppet” of Lim Kit Siang and the opposition, Mahathir said, “Let them say what they want to say. I have no objections.

“Last time, I was called ‘maha firaun’ (great pharaoh).”