"Pak, Lah, bohong!"

UPDATED VERSION. If you are counting out Dr Mahathir after his failure to get elected as a national delegate to the Umno annual general meeting in Kubang Pasu Saturday, hold your horses. He has cranked up the strangling screws on Abdullah Ahmad Badawi by two notches.

The centrepiece to his new campaign today is his calling of Abdullah a liar. He also reiterated that he would not stop criticising the present government for all the misdeeds it has done.

He made three key points. First, he claimed money politics was involved in Saturday's delegates election in which Umno members were bribed to vote against him.

Two, the Khairy factor must be brought back into focus and appropriately dealt with again though the Son-in-Law has tried playing the racial cards against other Barisan Nasional component parties to divert Umno members' attention.

Three, Abdullah is asked to change his foreign policy and all his misdeeds, or he should get himself changed.

This morning, Dr Mahathir had two sessions to dislodge his new salvos through the press, one at the de-brefing to his party supporters, and the other at the press conference which was more jam-packed than last Monday's. I was an eye-witness at both functions.

In his opening remarks, Dr Mahathir said: "So I was defeated in Kubang Pasu? It was money that decided the day. I was defeated because of cheats and money politics. But 'moral victory' is still mine."

In his closing remarks, spoken in English for the benefits of the foreign Press, Dr Mahathir said:

"So you want to shut me up? So you want to cut me off? You can't shut me up because I have a big mouth.

And I am going to use this big mouth to expose the misdeeds of the government, and the misdeeds of this family-run government of Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi."

According to Dr Mahathir, money has changed hands and the going for Umno members to sell their maruah was just RM200. Out of 472 votes balloted, Mahathir obtained 227.

'Maruah Umno sekadar 200 ringgit'

Apparently, one female Umno member shook his hand in the traditional salam among Malays, and slipped in a piece of paper into his hand. It contained seven numbers of the canadidates contesting for the G7 national delegates. The slipped piece of preferred candidates' list -- much akin to the cai dan (menu) rampant in MCA elections -- was purported to be part of the content stuffed in brown envelopes. Each brown envelope was said to contain RM200.

"Itulah harga maruah ahli Umno sekarang, dua ratus ringgit," he said cynically.