Kuala Lumpur | “We want a good government with none of the bad baggage of the past,” 97-year-old Mahathir Mohamad said. The emphatic statement from Malaysia’s longest serving prime minister, who is running once again for parliament, says a lot about the tortured nature of the country’s politics.

In a wide-ranging interview this week, Dr Mahathir held forth on the country’s looming election, the war in Europe, his conviction China does not want to invade Taiwan but may be goaded into it, and even Donald Trump (“an accident – a third world leader of a first world country”).