Malaysia’s Mahathir wants to scrap rail link with Singapore

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad pledged on Monday to scrap a project to build a high-speed railway to Singapore, an ominous sign for the neighbours’ famously fractious relationship.

Mahathir, who won a surprise election victory in May against Najib Razak’s longruling coalition, is seeking to improve the country’s finances, which he says deteriorated dramatically after the former government became embroiled in a financial scandal.

The leader said it was a “final decision” to scrap plans for the bullet-train line between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, which had been agreed on several years ago and was expected to cut travel time to 90 minutes from five hours by road today.

“It’s not beneficial. It’s going to cost us a huge sum of money; we’ll make no money at all from this operation,” Mahathir said.

He was not sure how long it would take to implement. “Of course we have to talk to Singapore, we have an agreement with them,” he said.

Singapore’s transport ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But the development will alarm the Singapore government, which is watching to see whether the return of Mahathir — whose relationship with the city-state was famously prickly during his first stint as premier from 1981 to 2003 — might cause ties to worsen.

The neighbours have had a difficult relationship since Singapore was expelled from the Malaysian Federation in 1965 over ethnic issues.

When Mahathir was first prime minister, there were rows over everything from water — Singapore gets its water supply from Malaysia — to the Malaysian leader’s plan to build a bridge connecting the neighbours to replace the causeway. The project never took off.

However, under Najib, who was accused of overseeing the plunder of state coffers, relations had been warm.

Malaysia and Singapore signed a deal in 2016 to build the rail project. Companies had started submitting bids for the 350km line, which was scheduled to be completed by 2026.

At present, most people take a flight of about an hour between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, on what is the world’s busiest international air route.