Umno Supreme Council member Puad Zarkashi said Mahathir, also a former Umno president, had forgotten that he once tried to reduce the party to a “fly” and even sought to destroy it to make way for Bersatu.

However, Puad said, it was Mahathir who ultimately became a “fly” after being ousted by Muhyiddin Yassin’s people from Bersatu, following accusations that he made the party subservient to DAP, while leading the previous Pakatan Harapan (PH) government.

He added that such claims followed Bersatu’s heavy defeat in the Tanjung Piai by-election in November 2019.

The by-election saw Bersatu, which was then part of PH, suffer a major loss with a 15,086-vote deficit to Barisan Nasional.

“Mahathir had to ‘fly’ from one place to another to find a new home,” Puad said, referring to the former prime minister launching Pejuang after being sacked from Bersatu, then leaving Pejuang to join a group of Malay-Muslim parties and NGOs called, Gerakan Tanah Air, or GTA.

“Umno is not affected by being labelled a fly. In fact, Umno has proven to be a venomous snake in the Nenggiri and Mahkota by-elections.”

Yesterday, Mahathir had referred to Umno’s representatives in the government as “flies” citing a comment made by DAP leader Nga Kor Ming about Umno Youth chief Dr Akmal Saleh.

In response to Mahathir’s remarks, Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi today said: “We respect his age, but not his opinion.”

In 2020, then Bersatu Supreme Council member Wan Saiful Wan Jan clarified that Mahathir, Mukhriz Mahathir, Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, Maszlee Malik and Amiruddin Hamzah were not sacked from Bersatu but had their party membership “automatically nullified”.

Wan Saiful said the five MPs’ membership was terminated after they joined the opposition bench in the Dewan Rakyat when it sat for one day on May 18, 2020.