Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad

Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad (b. December 20, 1925) is the former Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the post from 1981 to 2003. During his term in office he was credited for engineering Malaysia's rapid modernization and promoting "Asian values". He is also known for his sharp criticisms of foreign powers. He has also been criticised for being antisemitic.

EARLY LIFE

Born in Alor Star, the capital of the northern state of Kedah, Mahathir said in his autobiography that he had Indian ancestry (from his father), with its origins tracing back to Kerala in India, while his mother was a Kedah-born Malay. Mahathir, however, considers himself to be a "full Malay", in line with Article 160 of the Constitution. Under Article 153 of the Constitution, Malays are granted particular rights not available to other citizens.

During World War II, he sold pisang goreng (banana fritters) to supplement his family income in the Japanese occupation of Malaya.

Mahathir first attended a Malay vernacular school before continuing his education at the Sultan Abdul Hamid College in Alor Star. Mahathir then attended the King Edward VII Medical College in Singapore, where he edited a medical student magazine called The Cauldron; he also contributed to the The Straits Times newspaper anonymously under the nickname "Che Det". Mahathir was also President of the Muslim Society in the college.[1] In 1953, Mahathir entered the then Malayan government service as a medical officer upon graduation. He married Dr. Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali—a former classmate in college—on August 5, 1956, and left the government service in 1957 to set up his own practice in Alor Star. Mahathir's practice thrived, allowing him to own by 1959 a Pontiac Catalina and a Chinese chauffeur (at the time most chauffeurs were Malay, owing to Chinese economic dominance [citation needed]). Some critics have suggested this foreshadowed a later hallmark of Mahathir's politics, which focused on the "cultivation of such emblems of power".[2]

Active in politics since 1945, beginning with his involvement in the Anti-Malayan Union Campaign, Mahathir joined the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) upon its inception in 1946. As State Party Chairman, and Chairman of the Political Committee, he inadvertently angered some quarters with his proposal that the selection of candidates be based on certain qualifications for the 1959 general election. Hurt by accusations that he was scheming to put up candidates who were strongly allied to him, Mahathir refused to take part in the national election that year.

In the third general election of 1964, Mahathir was elected Member of Parliament for Kota Setar Selatan[3] defeating the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party's (PAS) candidate with a 60.2% majority. He lost the seat in the following general election in 1969 by a mere 989 votes to PAS's candidate, Haji Yusoff Rawa[4] after he categorically declared that he did not need Chinese votes to win.[5]

Following the race riots of May 13, 1969 in the May 13 Incident, Mahathir was sacked from the UMNO Supreme Council on 12 July, following his widespread distribution to the public of his letter to Tunku Abdul Rahman, the then Prime Minister. In his letter, he had criticised the manner in which the Tunku had handled the country's administration. Mahathir was subsequently relieved of his party membership on 26 September.[4]

While in the political wilderness, Mahathir wrote his book, "The Malay Dilemma"[4] in which he sought to explain the causes of the May 13 Incident in Kuala Lumpur and the reasons for the Malays' lack of economic progress within their own country. He then proposed a politico-economic solution in the form of "constructive protection", worked out after careful consideration of the effects of heredity and environmental factors on the Malay race. The book, published in 1970, was promptly banned by the Tunku Abdul Rahman government.[4] However, some of the proposals in this book had been used by Tun Abdul Razak, the second Prime Minister, in his "New Economic Policy" (N.E.P.) that was principally geared towards affirmative action economic programs to address the nation's economic disparity between the Malays and the non-Malays. The ban on his book was eventually lifted after Mahathir became Prime Minister in 1981.[4]

Mahathir rejoined UMNO on 7 March 1972, and was appointed as Senator in 1973. He relinquished the senatorship post in 1974 in order to contest in the general elections where he was returned unopposed in the constituency of Kubang Pasu, and was appointed as the Minister of Education.[4] In 1975, he became one of the three vice-presidents of U.M.N.O., after winning the seat by 47 votes. Tun Hussein Onn appointed Mahathir as Deputy Prime Minister on 15 September 1978, and in a Cabinet reshuffle, appointed him concurrently as the Minister of Trade and Industry.

Mahathir became the Prime Minister of Malaysia on 10 July 1981 when Tun Hussein Onn stepped down due to health reasons. After 22 years in office, Mahathir retired on October 31, 2003, making him one of Asia's longest-serving political leaders. Upon his retirement on 31 October 2003, Mahathir was awarded a "Tun"-ship, Malaysia's highest civilian honour.

POLITICAL MACHINE

After his twenty-two year rule, Mahathir is still seen as a political "strongman".[citation needed] As Prime Minister, he was often criticised by the west for his authoritarian policies and use of state power to suppress opponents via the media, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies.

In 1983 and 1991, he took on the federal and state monarchies, removing the royal veto and royal immunity from prosecution.[2] Many Malaysians, however, were pleased with this, as there had been frequent cases of abuse of power by the royal families.[citation needed] Prior to this amendment of the law, royal assent was required in order for any bill to pass into law. With effect of this amendment, approval by parliament could be legally considered as royal assent after a period of 30 days, notwithstanding the views of the monarchs. However, this only applied to secular laws and the various kings continued to enjoy the right to make Islamic law in their own jurisdictions.

In 1988 when the future of the ruling party UMNO was about to be decided in the Supreme Court (it had just been deregistered as an illegal society in the High Court), he was believed to have engineered the dismissal of the Lord President of the Supreme Court, Salleh Abas, and three other supreme court justices who tried to block the misconduct hearings. The series of incidents in 1988 has been widely viewed as the end of the judiciary's independence from the executive.

In 1998 attention around the globe was focused on Malaysia when the government brought sodomy and abuse of power charges against the former finance minister and deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar claimed that he was being set up because he had tried to turn corruption and nepotism into major political issues, with Mahathir and his associates as the targets. Mahathir's supporters believe that it was Anwar's attempt to replace Mahathir as the Prime Minister, upon seeing the downfall of Indonesia's Suharto, that has led him to be removed from politics altogether. It was Mahathir after all, who had groomed and placed him there as his deputy.[citation needed]

At the UMNO meeting in June 1998, Anwar's supporters had planned a sneak attack on the prime minister, hitting him in the area where they consider him most vulnerable: corruption. Mahathir fired back, reading from a prepared list, the names of all ruling-party members who had benefited from government contracts. The list included some of Anwar's relatives. The corruption talk was quickly shelved.

Many observers also saw the engineering of Anwar's dismissal as the result of the triumph of the secular corporate nationalist old guard over the younger "green" or Islamist faction within UMNO, created after the popular Islamic youth leader, Anwar, had been brought into the government by Mahathir.[citation needed]

The trial itself was a tawdry spectacle.[citation needed] The government included the statements of the purported "victims" of Anwar's sodomy attacks, evidence that was widely considered to be tainted.[citation needed] Furthermore, the prosecution was unable to accurately decide on a date that the alleged acts of anal sex had occurred - the government originally alleged that a sodomy had occurred inside a building that had not been constructed at the time of the alleged event. Mahathir himself went as far as to go on television to declare Anwar guilty of sodomy and homosexual acts, even as the trial still was underway. There was widespread condemnation of the trail from human rights groups and the Malaysia bar association, who expressed serious doubts about its fairness. Mahathir then ordered a crackdown on the media and opposition parties who protested the trial. Anwar Ibrahim was sentenced to six years in prison for corruption and nine years prison for sodomy, to be served consecutively.[8][9]

The Anwar crisis sparked protests by some Malaysians, of all ethnic groups, and some of Anwar's supporters from UMNO regrouped around the intellectual-Muslim "Parti Keadilan Nasional" (National Justice Party). It garnered widespread support from Malaysians, though "Parti keAdilan" could only win only five parliamentary seats in the 1999 elections as Mahathir frequently used his authority and intimidation to stifle its organization. In the subsequent 2004 elections, with Anwar's release and conviction overturned, the party was nearly wiped out, with Wan Azizah, the wife of Anwar, winning one seat by the narrowest of margins, mainly based on sympathetic votes, and thereon ceased to be relevant.

UMNO under Mahathir developed a feudalistic tradition whereby political factions battling to ensure the growth of so-called 'warlords' would gladly throw UMNO into chaos, rather than see their prominent champion miss out on appointment to plum posts.[citation needed] The Anwar debacle was an example of this, as was an earlier rebellion by UMNO strongman, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who broke away to form the "Semangat 46" (the Spirit of '46) party (now defunct).

UMNO heads were seen by opposition supporters as corrupt politicians more focused on power and economic gain, as Mahathir was only interested in their total loyalty.[citation needed] PAS leveraged this into a selling point by promising a clean, Islamic administration. Despite this, PAS only captured the state of Terengganu in the 1999 elections, and failed to retain it in the next election. This was largely seen to be due to PAS' fundamentalist Islamic policies, as they had introduced Islamic sharia laws into Terengganu and their other stronghold, Kelantan. These laws included banning various forms of entertainment, and mandatory wearing of the headscarf for female Muslim civil servants. Many political analysts felt that this had prevented PAS from making major gains, keeping the reins of power firmly in Mahathir's hands, as the non-Malay voters were turned off by the perceived religious fundamentalism of PAS. Also, Mahathir remained tremendously popular among many Malaysians, and the third world.[citation needed] He is known for being a man of few words,[citation needed] and for his somewhat successful policies in steering Malaysia towards development and economic prosperity. In the Asian financial crisis of 1998, IMF has prescribed a recovery package for Malaysia, but Mahathir defied international pressure, his then Deputy Anwar Ibrahim, and conventional wisdom, in rejecting the package. Though economic prosperity has been mixed since then, Mahathir argued that Malaysia's recovery was relatively faster and better, as compared to many other Asian countries affected. After the financial crisis, the IMF and World Bank acknowledged that Mahathir's approach had worked, and if Anwar's policies had been carried out, Malaysia would have ended up like Argentina.[citation needed]

Ministries were allotted to all component parties of the Barisan Nasional. Even non-Malay parties obtained the ministerships of key ministries such as Health (MCA), Transport (MCA), and the Works Ministry (MIC). Certain ministries were also shared with one party traditionally getting the ministers post and another party getting the deputy ministership. This was standard coalition politics as with all other coalition governments who wanted to ensure everyone got a slice of the cake.

EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

In 1975 Mahathir was appointed Minister of Education. He had always believed in the need for "education for the masses", with greater emphasis on maths and science, at high school level, in order to achieve his dream of a developed Malaysia. He continued to strongly promote his agenda of quantity-and-quality higher education during his term as prime minister.

In those days, English, Chinese and Tamil-medium schools were fully run by private and missionary organizations. Students from these school sat for the respective overseas examinations set by the board of school committees and associations. For instance, Overseas Cambridge School Certificate (OSC) was set for English schools. Under the former Prime Minister's order, he drafted the KBSM syllabus in order to make Malay a compulsory subject to be taught in all subjects in these schools. Overseas examinations were subsequently abolished one after another throughout the years. Schools which converted to the national type received heavy fundings from the government. Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) and Sijil Rendah Pelajaran (SRP) were fully introduced as national examinations.

In order to cater for the lower income indigenous population, boarding schools were promoted and constructed. Through government scholarships, tens of thousands of students were sent yearly to universities in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, western-type countries that Mahathir aspired to achieve par development with. Middle- and higher-income groups from non-Bumiputera Malaysians who were unable to get a place in the local universities, due to the restrictive quota system and limited government scholarships, also independently sent their children to these universities. This has led Malaysia to have the third largest number of students going to western-type countries to pursue higher education, after China and India.[citation needed] Till today, education is a major source of Malaysia's expenditure,[citation needed] something that the current administration is trying to remedy. After years of sending students abroad, Malaysian post-graduate and industrial research and development has still not shown any notable progress.[citation needed]

In 1980, education quota was introduced as part of the National Economic Policy. Mahathir who became the acting prime minister, introduced the quota system to all economic sectors in Malaysia including the education system, whereby a designated percentage of undergraduate seats of higher institutions were reserved for Bumiputra (natives) citizens. This has led to a large number of highly competitive non-bumiputra applicants being unable to secure admission to institutions of higher learning. These applicants resort to the neighbouring or foreign countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada and the western countries mentioned above.

Towards his later years, Mahathir promoted the liberalization of university start-ups, leading to branch campuses being built or the formation of permanent tie-ups with some of the most prestigious universities in the world. Amongst others, these led to the construction of

1. The University of Nottingham in Malaysia (in partnership with the University of Nottingham, U.K.)

2. Malaysia University of Science and Technology (M.U.S.T.), in partnership with M.I.T. (U.S.) and Motorola)

3. Monash University Malaysia (in partnership with Monash University, Australia)

4. Curtin University of Technology, Sarawak Campus (in partnership with Curtin University of Technology, Australia)

Private companies with a long running history in Malaysia like Intel and AMD were also encouraged to set up, and run partnerships and/or higher education centres and centres of excellence.

In 2003 after more than 20 years in post, he commented that non-bumiputra students excel far ahead of bumiputra students in academic qualifications. He soon introduced meritocracy by gradually lowering down the quota percentage reserved each year for the intake of bumiputra applicants in higher institutions to encourage fair competitions. In the year before his retirement, he attempted to remedy this problem by announcing that Mathematics and Science subjects must be taught in English in all primary and secondary schools. As a result of this rapid transition, the new school textbooks contain numerous typographical errors, and school teachers who are not fluent in English suffer difficulties in their teachings. This also subsequently caused some resentment among the Chinese education community and the hard-line Malays

FOREIGN RELATIONS

During Mahathir's tenure in office, Malaysia's relationship with the West was turbulent.[citation needed] Early during his tenure, a small disagreement with the United Kingdom over university tuition fees sparked off a boycott of all British goods led by Mahathir, in what became known as the "Buy British Last" campaign. It also led to a search for development models in Asia, most notably Japan. This was the beginning of his famous "Look East Policy". Although the dispute was later resolved by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Mahathir continued to emphasize Asian development models over contemporary Western ones.[citation needed] Although Mahathir has managed to find solutions to many problems in Malaysia, ironically, he has managed to create more problems diplomatically, as seen with a great number of countries.[citation needed] These problems are usually small ones which crop up from personal matters, yet Mahathir always brings the Malaysian government into play, such as the imposition of boycotts.

RETIREMENT

In 2002 a tearful[17] Mahathir announced his resignation to a surprised UMNO General Assembly. He was persuaded to stay on for a further eighteen months, in a carefully planned handover that ended in October 2003. On his retirement, he was granted Malaysia's highest honour, which entitles him to the title Tun from his original Datuk Seri. Since retirement, he has been serving as an advisor to the Malaysian national oil company Petronas and the Malaysian national car company Proton, an original core national project initiated by Mahathir during his premiership. He is also the head of the Perdana Leadership Foundation, a foundation whose aim is to preserve, develop and spread materials regarding or written by previous Malaysian Prime Ministers. While he has retired from all political offices, he remains very outspoken regarding national policies.

Shortly before leaving office, Mahathir sparked off a fierce controversy when at the 57-member "Organization of the Islamic Conference" (OIC) summit, he claimed that "the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them".[18] However, he also mentioned:" We also know that not all non-Muslims are against us. Some are well disposed towards us. Some even see our enemies as their enemies. Even among the Jews there are many who do not approve of what the Israelis are doing."

His comments were widely criticized in the West, but the issue was ignored in Asia and Islamic countries, which felt that his remark had been taken out of context. Mahathir later defended his remarks, saying: "I am not anti-Semitic ... I am against those Jews who kill Muslims and the Jews who support the killers of Muslims." He tagged the West as "anti-Muslim", for double standards by "protecting Jews while allowing others to insult Islam." also mentioning “But when somebody condemns the Muslims, calls my prophet, "terrorist", did the European Union say anything?".[19] In 2004, he stated that both Bush and Kerry avoided certain acts due to concerns that they would "annoy the Jewish group." However, his comments does not stop international criticism especially from United States and Israel.

In 2005 Mahathir brought up the issue of excessive awarding of Approved Permits (APs) to import cars, stating that they were creating too much competition for Proton, causing friction between him and Rafidah Aziz, the Minister for International Trade and Industry, who oversaw the awarding of APs. His successor, Abdullah, then announced that a National Automotive Policy (NAP) would be created to appropriately handle the issue. Later, when touching on the issue, Mahathir lamented the government's majority in Parliament, saying, "I believe that the country should have a strong government but not too strong. A two-thirds majority like I enjoyed when I was prime minister is sufficient but a 90% majority is too strong....We need an opposition to remind us if we are making mistakes. When you are not opposed you think everything you do is right".[20]

CRITICISM OF HIS SUCCESSOR

In 2006 Mahathir's relationship with his successor started to get strained. In a press conference on 7 June 2006 at the Perdana Leadership Foundation, which he heads, Mahathir said that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was not his first choice as successor but it was the current Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak, instead. He said that he felt hurt by allegations that he "finished all the government's money, and that the government was bankrupt" because of the mega-projects initiated by him during his tenure as prime minister.[23] Mahathir added that he has "...a habit of choosing the wrong people" when he was answering the question whether Abdullah had stabbed him in the back.[23] He has also criticised the present government's decision to scrap the plan to replace Malaysia's side of the Johor-Singapore Causeway. In his opinion, Malaysia does not need to seek the approval to build a bridge on its own soil. This and other such issues have led many to believe that UMNO is under the threat of splitting into Mahathir and Badawi factions. A statement was issued by UMNO to reassure the public that they wholeheartedly supported Badawi, although as of yet, no stand has been taken over the issue of Mahathir's membership in the party. Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Nazri Aziz, suggested that Mahathir "wants to force him (Abdullah) to quit. He needs to be told he is no longer Prime Minister. His campaign is not for the sake of the country but for himself."[24]

To make his voice heard, Mahathir decided to bid to become a delegate from Kubang Pasu for the 2006 UMNO general assembly. This move, if successful, would bring great chagrin to Abdullah who seemed to use every form of censorship available to shut Mahathir up. He failed in his bid to be elected as a representative which is surprising given the fact that Kubang Pasu is his stronghold for over three decades.[citation needed] Later, an angry Mahathir claimed that the "establishment" (in reference to the present government) were doing everything in their power including, but not limited to using government machine that is normally reserved for general elections, to ensure that he didn't get elected. Mahathir even went as far as to allege — albeit, without proof — that the interested party paid RM200 for every vote casted against him. Mahathir also challenged the government to throw him in jail if the government wanted him to shut his mouth.

On, 22 October 2006, Mahathir had a private meeting with Abdullah, in which he voiced his dissatisfactions face-to-face for the first time with Abdullah. This meeting was highly anticipated by members of UMNO and other Malaysians to be an opportunity to narrow the differences between both of them.

However, Mahathir continued his criticisms of Abdullah after the meeting, saying that he was not satisfied with Abdullah's answers to his views.[25]

In a press conference after the meeting, Mahathir revealed one of his dissatisfactions; he felt that his civil liberties to voice his opinions and meeting with people were curtailed by the government. This is a quote from the press conference on this topic.

And I pointed out to him that firstly, this has become a police state. Because every time anybody invites me to give a talk, they would be called up by the police and warned, called up by the police and told to withdraw the invitation. Someone was not allowed to hold any meeting at all which involves me. This happened to many people. They were very shy to tell me about it but they were called up by the police and of course they were also called up by the mentri besar as well... But I consider this a police state. And I consider also that my civic right has been taken away from me because I have every right to talk to Umno people, university people, civil servants and that’s my right.

Mahathir also voiced certain conducts of Abdullah and his relatives (before and after Abdullah became Prime Minister) that would amount to corruption although Mahathir did not explicitly accuse Abdullah of that. Mahathir expressed his disappointment regarding Abdullah's role in the oil-for-food programme with Iraq; Abdullah's name was listed as a beneficiary in a report published by the US government regarding the programme. Abdullah's son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, and his son had also been accused by Mahathir of offering contracts to their connections, which amounts to corruption.

Mahathir had also criticised Abdullah's handling of the Approved Permits (AP) issue, expressing his surprise that Rafidah Aziz was still retained as a Cabinet member although two people on the list of persons issued with highest number of APs were linked to Rafidah