After two cancellations of his attempt on Sunday to hold an indoor mass meeting to drum up support for his campaign to highlight alleged Malay grievances, Dr Mahathir Mohamad would bring a bludgeon rather than a scalpel to take down his nemesis, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Chagrined by the cancellations of his bookings to hold a “Proklamasi Melayu” gathering, the frustrated former prime minister, told a press conference that Anwar was complicit in the matter, though he offered no proof.

Infamous during his first stint as PM for insisting that people show proof before hurling accusations of any kind, Mahathir is now similarly remiss in offering no proof of Anwar’s alleged complicity in preventing him from holding an indoor gathering.

Authorities at the venues who did not give reasons for their cancellations obviously preferred silence to saying something that would only give the spiral of expostulation and reply a nudge. 

This would open the floodgates to a back-and-forth that would lead to nowhere.

Instead of taking their circumspection as a cue, Mahathir came out swinging at Anwar with roundhouse hooks...