Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is attempting to quell the rise of religious and racial tension but lacks the power to do so.

Mahathir was asked if the current situation reflected Najib's poor leadership and if he should continue leading the nation.

"It is up to the people, they elected him. Najib is trying to do a good job but is he in a difficult situation," he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur today.

Najib was put in a difficult position, where the the people demanded liberalism but the opposition misused such a situation, he said.

"He's in a very difficult position, when you (Najib) take action, people said you are not liberal, but if you don't, things get worse.

"You (voters) have not given him a strong mandate," he added, referring to the last general election results.

During his tenure, Mahathir - who always secured a two-thirds mandate - was known to come down hard on those who threatened national security.

However, he was also accused of crushing dissent and political opponents with an iron fist.

Meanwhile, the ex-premier also took a swipe at Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) over its controversial remarks.

Mahathir said the "Chinese are intruders" remark did do any good for the nation.

"The fact is, the Chinese are here, they are Malaysian citizens and have every right as citizens," he said.

"We don't want people to instigate racial riots. Isma should keep such opinions to itself," added the former premier, who himself has been accused of stoking racial tension.

He also claimed Isma has no proper understanding of the text of the Quran, to have said hudud should be imposed on non-Muslims.

"I think he doesn't read the Quran properly. It said, God does not like people who create riots," he said.

The former Umno president also advised his party, which will be celebrating its 68th anniversary on Sunday, to listen to the people and opposition, as a way to strengthen its support.

"As a political leader, one must listen to what has been said by the people, especially the opposition. Though you don't need to entertain the opposition which wants to topple the government, if you ignore them, you might continue to lose support," he said.

He urged Umno to learn from the lesson from the history where many political parties had failed to survive.

'Kedah should get three percent oil royalty'

Meanwhile, Mahathir seems unconvinced if Sarawak should get its 20 percent oil royalty as it’s a rich state, and suggested that Kedah, where his son Mukhriz helms the state, should benefit from a partial oil royalty.

"It’s up to the government to decide, whether it should give or not. But I find that Sarawak is a rich state," he said.

"Kedah has no oil, instead of giving them 20 percent, (why not) give Kedah three percent, we're not asking much. Kedah is a poor state, poorer than Perlis."

Earlier, Mahathir applauded army veteran Lt-Col Mohd Azzam Mohd Hanif Ghows for spending five years to prepare his coffeetable book, a collection of photos during insurrections between 1960 and 1990, saying that Malaysians shouldn't forget their history.

He said both late former South African president Nelson and him had once shared their experiences of how their governments were able to keep the country safe from insurgency.

"The guerrillas survived because people provided them with resources and not revealing their whereabouts.

"People at first mistakenly thought the guerrillas were fighting for freedom, but the government able to convince them, these people tried to impose their ideology which happened to be authoritarian and dictatorial.

"Mandela was quite startled at that time, because this was not what he thought, he thought that the people would support the struggle for freedom.

"Of course, his struggle was for freedom, but not the guerrillas," he said.

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