Will the people prefer if Malaysia returned to the era of former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak's administration?

That is the question asked by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in response to Najib's remark that Pakatan Harapan's policies were a return to a "bygone era".

"The bygone era was the era when Malaysia was known as an Asian Tiger.

"Is he saying that the people should be taken back to the era when the nation was known as a kleptocracy led by a kleptocrat?" Mahathir asked in a statement today.

During Mahathir's first tenure as prime minister, Malaysia underwent rapid development and industrialisation which earned the country the title of one of the “Asian Tigers”.

Yesterday, in his maiden speech in the Dewan Rakyat as part of the opposition, Najib had accused the Pakatan Harapan government of adopting "regressive policies".

Among the examples he cited were the decrease in civil servants' salaries, another proposed national car project instead of a focus on public transportation and increased government subsidies.

He claimed these were policies the PKR reformasi movement had been against in the past.