Malaysian statesman and prime minister, (1979 ), born in Alur Setar, Malaysia. He practised as a doctor (195764) before being elected to the House of Representatives as a United Malays' National Organisation (UMNO) candidate. He won support through his affirmative action in favour of bumiputras (ethnic Malays) and a more Islamic social policy. After holding several ministerial posts, he was appointed UMNO leader and prime minister in 1979, immediately launching a new economic policy, emulating Japanese industrialization. He was re-elected in 1982, 1986, 1990, and 1995.
Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (born July 10, 1925) is the former Prime Minister of Malaysia. Mahathir is also known to be a very outspoken diplomat both on the national and international stage.
Although his formal title is "Yang Amat Berbahagia Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad", Mahathir is fondly called "Dr. M" by his supporters, an appellation also used by the media.
Early life and career
Born in Alor Setar, 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.
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; Mahathir was also President of the Muslim Society in the college 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). Some critics have suggested this foreshadowed a later hallmark of Mahathir's politics, which focused on the "cultivation of such emblems of power".
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. 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, defeating the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party's (PAS) candidate with a 60.2% majority. (Ironically, Mahathir won the 1999 general elections mainly due to Chinese votes, when the Malay grounds were split over his quarrels with his deputy Anwar Ibrahim.)
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. Mahathir was subsequently relieved of his party membership on 26 September.
While in the political wilderness, Mahathir wrote his book, "The Malay Dilemma", 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. However, some of the proposals in this book had been used by Tun Abdul Razak, the second Prime Minister, in his "New Economic Policy" 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.
Mahathir rejoined UMNO on 7 March 1972, and was appointed as Senator in 1973. 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.
Economic policies
During his term in office, Mahathir turned Malaysia into a regional high-tech manufacturing, financial, and telecommunications hub through his economic policies based on corporate nationalism, known as the various "Malaysia Plans" which set out the government middle-term objectives.
His pet projects have included Perwaja Steel, an attempt to emulate South Korea and Japan, the Proton car company, and Astro, a satellite television service.
Mahathir is credited with spearheading the phenomenal growth of the Malaysian economy, now one of the largest and most powerful in South East Asia.
During this period, Mahathir embarked on various large scale national projects, such as:
the North-South Highway, which has cut transport times in half on the west coast of Malaysia;While such projects have their benefits, corresponding high costs have made some Malaysians reluctant to engage in more of such ventures, believing that the money can be better spent on other areas of development. On the other hand, Mahathir has always argued that such projects yield a direct return to the economy, apart from just serving the national pride, as government spending in turn creates jobs along with other multiplier effects. Mahathir has also been criticised for the failures and inefficiency of some of his pet projects.
The Bakun Dam project was to be managed by a local construction firm, Ekran Berhad.
Political machine
After his twenty-two year rule, Mahathir is still seen as a political "strongman".
In 1983 and 1991, he took on the federal and state monarchies, removing the royal veto and royal immunity from prosecution.
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.
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. Many in Malaysia and the region, however, 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.
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.
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.
In separate trials, Anwar Ibrahim was sentenced to six years in prison for corruption and nine years prison for sodomy, to be served concurrently.
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).
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.
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. 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. 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.
Ministries were allotted to all component parties of the Barisan Nasional.
Educational system
See also: Education in MalaysiaIn 1975, Mahathir was appointed Minister of Education.
In those days, English, Chinese and Tamil-medium schools were fully run by private and missionary organizations.
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.
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.
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
The University of Nottingham in Malaysia (in partnership with the University of Nottingham, UK) Malaysia University of Science and Technology - MUST (in partnership with MIT (USA) and Motorola) Monash University Malaysia (in partnership with Monash University, Australia) 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.
Foreign relations
During Mahathir's tenure in office, Malaysia's relationship with the West was turbulent. 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. Although the dispute was later resolved by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Mahathir continued to emphasize Asian development models over contemporary Western ones. 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. 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.
United States
Mahathir has always been an outspoken critic of the United States but yet the United States was the biggest source of foreign investment, and was Malaysia's biggest customer during Mahathir's rule.
Some allege that relations with the United States took a turn for the worse in 1998, when US Vice President Al Gore stated at the APEC conference hosted by Malaysia:
"Democracy confers a stamp of legitimacy that reforms must have in order to be effective.
Al Gore had been criticizing the charges made by Mahathir against Mahathir's former deputy Anwar Ibrahim, charges of sodomy and abuse of power. An article in Malaysia Today commented that "Gore's comments constituted a none-too-subtle attack on Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and more generally on governments, including Japan, that resist US demands for further market reforms." Gore's endorsement for the reformasi (reformation,) asking for (among other things) the ouster of Mahathir, was anathema to Mahathir, and he remarked that "I've never seen anybody so rude."
However, Mahathir's views were already firmly entrenched before this event.
The relationship was stormy both ways. Following Mahathir's ouster and imprisonment of Anwar Ibrahim, Madeleine Albright paid a visit to Anwar's wife.
Yet he has not hesitated to point to America for justification of his own actions.
At the other end of the spectrum, the United States government has previously criticised the Malaysian government for implementing the ISA, most recently in 2001 when President George W.
In 2003, Mahathir spoke to the Non-Aligned Movement in Kuala Lumpur, and as part of his speech, said: "If innocent people who died in the attack on Afghanistan and those who have been dying from lack of food and medical care in Iraq are considered collaterals, are the 3,000 who died in New York, and the 200 in Bali also just collaterals whose deaths are necessary for operations to succeed?"
Marie Huhtala, the American ambassador to Malaysia responded with a statement: "These are not helpful statements by any standard and I'm here to tell you that Washington does take note of them.
More recently, the 2003 Invasion of Iraq caused additional friction between the two countries; Mahathir was highly critical of Bush for acting without a United Nations mandate.
Notwithstanding the behaviour of Mahathir, Malaysia's relationship with the US has been strong. 108–21) on US Policy policy towards South East Asia sums it up as "Despite sometimes blunt and intemperate public remarks by Prime Minister Mahathir, U.S.-Malaysian cooperation has a solid record in areas as diverse as education, trade, military relations, and counter-terrorism."
Even after retirement, Mahathir was not hesitant about his criticisms of the United States.
Australia
Mahathir's relationship with Australia (the closest country in the Anglosphere to Malaysia, and the one whose foreign policy is most concentrated on the region), and his relationship with Australia's political leaders, has been particularly rocky. Mahathir regularly took offense at portrayals of Malaysia in the Australian media, calling on the government to intervene in this (an action that would be politically unthinkable in Australia). Relationships between Mahathir and Australia's leaders reached a low point in 1993 when Paul Keating described Mahathir as "recalcitrant" for not attending the APEC summit.
Mahathir, along with other Malaysian politicians (and many other Asian leaders) also heavily criticised Keating's successor, John Howard, whom he believed had encouraged Pauline Hanson, whose views were widely perceived in Asia (and Australia) as racist.
Mahathir has valued the right of a nation to do whatever it wants within its borders, which he calls "sovereignty". In 2000, Mahathir was quoted as saying: "If Australia wants to be a friend to Asia, it should stop behaving as if it is there to teach us how to run our country.
Mahathir also made remarks to the effect that John Howard was trying to be America's 'Deputy Sheriff' in the Pacific region.
His perception of Howard has not softened after retirement.
Middle East
Mahathir is regarded by many, especially in the West, as an anti-Semite.
In 1997, during the financial crisis, he attributed the collapse of the Malaysian ringgit to a conspiracy of Jews against a prosperous Muslim state: "The Jews robbed the Palestinians of everything, but in Malaysia they could not do so, hence they do this, depress the ringgit."
Under Mahathir, a leading critic of Israel, Malaysia was a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, and established diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
On October 16, 2003 (shortly before he stepped down as prime minister), Mahathir said at the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Putrajaya, "We Muslims are actually very strong, 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. Speaking for the EU, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that Dr Mahathir had employed 'expressions that were gravely offensive, very strongly anti-Semitic and...
Singapore
Mahathir is an alumnus of the National University of Singapore (previously named University of Malaya).
However, relations with Singapore under Mahathir's tenure have been stormy. Many of these international issues have been raised up under Mahathir's Premiership term, but no significant headway had been made then to resolve them bilaterally. the proposed replacement of the Causeway by a suspension bridge to improve water flow through the Straits of Johor (later cancelled by Mahathir's successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi); The absurdity of the whole situation was illustrated by Mahathir's proposal to replace the Malaysian portion of the Causeway with half a bridge, with the end result, a crooked structure, being derided as ridiculous by citizens of both nations.
However, on the other hand, it could be understood that from Mahathir's perspective, he was trying to preserve the interest of the Malaysian people and public, as he viewed Malaysia as being marginalised by Singapore, the causeway and the water issues being two of the many disputes.
Recently, the issue of replacement of the Causeway with a bridge and the use of Malaysian airspace by the RSAF have been successfully solved by Mahathir's successor Abdullah, an issue that has been heavily criticised by Mahathir.
People's Republic of China
Though an anti-communist in his early career, Dr. Mahathir is highly in approval of the new directions adopted by the People's Republic of China (PRC) after Deng Xiaoping's ascension to power. Malaysia and the PRC maintained a close relationship since the late 1990s, when doubts and suspicions of China's ambition in ASEAN region were cleared, and Mahathir and Chinese leaders found many common grounds in their authoritarian style of ruling and their opposition to Western interference in regional matters. Mahathir is keen that the rise of PRC could to some extent balance the American influence in Southeast Asia, as well as benefiting Malaysia from the PRC's economic prosperity.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mahathir has been noted as a particular ally and sympathetic co-religionist of that nation.
He made another 3-day visit to Visoko to see the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun in July 2006.
Developing world
Among developing and Islamic countries, however, Mahathir remains greatly admired, particularly for Malaysia's impressive economic growth. Foreign leaders, such as Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev, praised him and have been trying to emulate Mahathir's developmental formulae.
Retirement
In 2002, a tearful Mahathir announced his resignation to a surprised UMNO General Assembly. Since Mahathir has retired, he has still been 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.
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 ...
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. 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.
Health
The former Prime Minister has a history of heart attack.
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. 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. 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.
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. 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 put him into the jail if it 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.
However, Mahathir continued his criticisms of Abdullah after the meeting, saying that he was not satisfied with Abdullah's answers to his views.
In a press conference after the meeting, Mahathir revealed one of his dissatisfactions;
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 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 although two people on the list of persons issued with highest number of APs were linked to Rafidah.
Other controversies
Former Malaysia Airlines chief executive officer, Tajudin Ramli claimed that he (Tajudin) was "forced" to buy out the shares of Malaysia Airlines by Mahathir during a period when the national carrier suffered financial difficulties. However, Mahathir denied this claim and said that he only asked if Tajudin was interested in the shares.
In 2006, he had a 2-hour talk with James W.
Legacy
Largely due to the economic development of the country, which by and large has benefited all races, Mahathir left behind a peaceful, prosperous, and self-confident Malaysia, for which he has been granted the soubriquet of Bapa Pemodenan (Father of Modernisation).
However, critics claim he has also left behind few competitive entrepreneurs due to his heavily statist policies, much factional infighting in political parties, increased racial polarisation, and an entrenched system of corruption and cronyism.
Moreover, his policies also came with a significant cost which Malaysians were reluctant to address as long as Mahathir was in control: The consequent distortion of free market dynamics is said to have fostered favoritism and inefficiency. Due to his statist policies along with the effects of the New Economic Policy, Malay-owned companies, resting on lavish government aid and subsidies, are extremely uncompetitive in Malaysia itself, let alone the world market.
Non-Malay firms, mostly owned by pro-Mahathir figures, have devoted most of their energies to trying to operate within this system as opposed to formulating and operating according to international capitalism, which explains their lack of noticeable effect on the global business scene. The extent to which cronyism is fostered is debatable, but the perception of it led to the depreciation of the ringgit during the 1997 financial crisis, and eventually to Mahathir's loosened grip on the sources of power.
In most local caricature which portrays him, most of his appearance has been made distinguished by his oddly large nose.
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