Mahathir said Pejuang would only work with political parties of a certain quality and those whose leaders were not entangled in court cases.

Warisan is very new and known mainly as a Sabah party, the former prime minister said.

“But even in Sabah they have lost a lot of support and many of their leaders have left. So what can Warisan do? Nothing,” he said when launching Pejuang’s Sabah chapter here this evening.

Warisan was founded in 2016 after Shafie Apdal was suspended from Umno.

Mahathir had previously backed Shafie as a prime ministerial candidate during the political crisis of 2021 when the Perikatan Nasional government collapsed. Last month, however, Shafie blamed both Mahathir and PKR president Anwar Ibrahim for the political stalemate in the country.