Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has labelled his call for opposition leaders including former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to retire from politics as an act of ‘love’.

“I love old people and that is why I asked him to retire,” he told Astro AWANI at a press conference, when asked about Dr Mahathir’s lament that Khairy is scared of old men and as such he is the one who should be retiring from politics.

Dr Mahathir had also said that there was no need for him to follow what Khairy had asked him to do.

Before this, Khairy, had said that Mahathir and former opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim were trying to divide the Malays for their own vested interests.

He also accused DAP’s Lim Kit Siang of trying to create a rift between Malays and Chinese.

Khairy said they should retire to allow younger people to take over the leadership of their respective parties.