Reflecting on his decision to appoint Syed Saddiq as the country’s youngest-ever minister in 2018, Mahathir said he saw great leadership potential in the then Bersatu Youth chief.
Syed Saddiq, who was crowned Asia’s best debater more than once, made history by becoming the youth and sports minister in the Pakatan Harapan government when he was only 25 years old.
“I thought that he showed great promise — the ability to speak, to lead and generate ideas. He was quite capable. Potentially, he could make a good leader,” Mahathir said on a podcast hosted by former minister Idris Jala and his son, Leon.
However, Mahathir said Syed Saddiq’s later decisions, particularly after the fall of the PH government in February 2020, diverged from the path he had envisioned for him.
“He chose a different route. He did not follow the path that I worked out for him. He thought of different ideas. He believed young people would play a bigger role.”
Syed Saddiq has frequently positioned himself as an advocate for youth-driven politics, a stance that set him apart from the established political landscape.
He was Bersatu’s first youth chief when the party was established in 2016 by Dr Mahathir Mohamad and other former Umno leaders.
He was sacked from Bersatu alongside Mahathir and several others in 2020 after sitting in the opposition bloc in the Dewan Rakyat, before going on to form his own party, Muda, in December 2021.
While Muda was allied with PH in the 2022 general election, Syed Saddiq, the party’s sole MP, decided to quit the government bloc in September 2023 and join the opposition.
Mahathir, the former Bersatu chairman, acknowledged the importance of roping in young people in leading the nation but argued that it was essential to balance it with experience.
“We need young people. We need their ideas, their idealism. But we also need old people. Just (having) the young alone is wrong. Likewise, just (having) the old alone is wrong,” he added.
Mahathir said there were other capable young leaders in Malaysian politics besides Syed Saddiq, naming former Umno Youth chief and ex-health minister Khairy Jamaluddin as one such figure.
“I must say there are other candidates like Khairy. They are good people. They are able to talk. Some of them, of course, were against me before.”
However, he said he had never discriminated against those who opposed him in the past, adding that he was willing to work with talented individuals, regardless of their past political views.