KUALA LUMPUR: As government pressure mounted yesterday to thwart a so-called "uprising", ousted Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim claimed there could be no reversal of his drive to raise the "national consciousness".

"It is a lesson . . . there is no turning back," Mr Anwar said hours after his former mentor, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, warned that he was merely trying to incite his own arrest as a "martyr".

Dr Mahathir backed statements by Foreign Minister Abdullah Badawi that Mr Anwar was trying to pull people on to the streets to solve personal troubles.

"His morals are not good," Dr Mahathir said of Mr Anwar.