COMMENT | The hammering Pakatan Harapan suffered in the Tanjung Piai by-election yesterday ought to be the perfect antidote to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's hubris, the pride that goes before a fall.

BN's crushing margin of victory leaves the PM with no room to weasel out of the reality that the vote was a referendum on his leadership.

The Malay dignity issue, of which Mahathir recently seemed so concerned with, has boomeranged with a biting edge on Harapan's supremo: Does he now have the grace to recognise the writing on the wall, that he's a liability to the ruling coalition and has to go, pronto?

In other words, does he have the dignity to yield – the premiership of the country – gracefully what he no longer has the legitimacy to retain?