COMMENT | And so the long-running Malaysian political soap-opera rolls on, with plot-twists and more cliff-hangers.

Last week’s episodes had a curtain-raiser with Senior Minister Azmin Ali (above) telling a press conference: “We should not be dragged into another political crisis and made victims just because someone is crazy for power and wants to be prime minister.”

Say what? The words would only have weight and meaning if they were an apologetic confession of mea culpa in the recent past. I bet he said it straight-faced without wincing.

Followed by a slight, light relief with Bersatu supreme council member Wan Saiful Wan Jan, in the vein of Mak Kiah, story-telling and domesticating the expulsion/exclusion of Dr Mahathir Mohamad from the party.

The party/family did not kick out the prodigal father. He left on his own steam.

“Instead, the person’s action has automatically caused him to be outside of the house. This is what has happened in this case,” said Wan Saiful.

Aww, Mahathir out on the streets, politically homeless and destitute, sleeping on flattened cartons in the corridors of power… except that he showed up in his office at Bersatu headquarters, awaiting eviction, and nobody showed up to beard the lion in his den. On that day the spirit of the brave, intrepid Malay warrior was nowhere to be seen.

What if Mahathir were to decide to work from his Bersatu office again? A couple of security personnel, reluctantly obeying the command of keeping their jobs, denying access? Stiff upper lips on grim government faces while the incident has...