Mohammad Agus Yusoff said it was time for the older leaders to relinquish their post and allow new leaders to take over.

“As long as the main actors remain, the political scene in the country will not be stable,” he said in a Facebook post.

The senior lecturer at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) said key party figures need to go as their leadership style increasingly fell short of current political demands.

He added that this especially applied to the likes of Dr Mahathir Mohamad (Pejuang), Anwar Ibrahim (PKR), Muhyiddin Yassin (Bersatu), Najib Razak and Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (Umno), Abdul Hadi Awang (PAS) and Lim Guan Eng (DAP).

“If you want to stay in politics and still love your party, be the party chairman or take on some other general leadership role. Let the day-to-day operations of the party be handled by new people.

“Malaysia needs to move forward and this requires new energy and ideas. We need fresh faces in our political parties.”

Agus said that since 2018, the country had seen three different prime ministers and yet it continued to decline.

The economy has not been managed well, corruption is rampant, the cost of goods is rising, unemployment is rising, and the Malaysian ringgit is failing, among others.

He also wondered if the four state elections held since 2018 – Sabah, Melaka, Sarawak, and Johor – had seen these states progress further or become more politically stable.

“Are investors more confident in our country? Do we need to speed up the 15th general election (GE15)?” he asked.