Making A Difference

Asia's Strongman

In power for 17 years, Mahathir Mohamed isn't giving up yet

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Asia's Strongman
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AT 73, Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamed is a true survivor. On July 1, when he completed 17 years in power, he had just staved off the latest challenger to the throne—his 52-year-old deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim. Mahathir clings on but perhaps faces his worst times ahead, what with the ringgit's collapse and growing criticism of his policies vis-avis international aid agencies, and particularly the US.

Ibrahim sought to displace Mahathir during last month's annual convention of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). Even the US wanted him out. But the wily Mahathir discovered the plot—when one conspirator unguardedly mentioned it to a Mahathir acolyte. US ambassador John Malott confirmed Mahathir's fears when, in an interview with the Malaysian news agency, Bernama, in Washington, he blatantly suggested that Mahathir's fiscal policies were wrong.

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Troops were quietly moved to crucial points around the city as the youth leader, Zaid Hamidi, fired the first salvo, focusing his attacks on nepotism and corruption. Mahathir swiftly turned the tables on the conspirators, and discussed ways to revive the economy with them. As one diplomat put it: "The challenge was over even before it started."

So Mahathir is back in control of the government, but the years have begun to tell on him. His vision of turning Malaysia into an industrialised country by 2020 lies in tatters. His belief that the dominant Malay community cannot survive the modern world unless it is granted reservations has backfired. In the massive privatisation programme, a handful of Malays benefited but every one of them is in financial trouble. It was this that led the challengers to mount a frontal attack.

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Mahathir may have outsmarted them this time but the tide is turning. In a crucial bypoll recently, the opposition Pan Malaysian Islamic Party won with a 30 per cent swing against the governing National Front, which UMNO dominates. "This does not worry him yet," says a political science lecturer at the University of Malaysia, "but Doc (as Mahathir is called) is at his best when he is pushed to the wall, as he is now."

And so it has been all his life. The grandson of an Indian Muslim police officer from Pattananthitta in Kerala who rose to become chief of the palace bodyguards of the Sultan of Kedah, Mahathir's desire to study law in England was foiled by palace intrigue. His father, an Indian schoolteacher, married a Malay lady of the court, and Mahathir strayed into medicine at the University of Malaya. His independent streak was strengthened by this, and has stayed with him through his life.

Mahathir entered Parliament in 1964 but lost the seat in 1969. He returned in 1971 and since then there has been no looking back—he became prime minister in 10 years. His strongest supporter, wife Siti Hasmah, a former classmate, raised eyebrows when she urged their children, three boys and a girl, to move to the corporate world under their father's patronage. The three sons collect directors' fees of RM3 million (Rs 3 crore) a month—this was one of the sticks Ibrahim hoped to beat Mahathir with.

Mahathir's political agility is matched by his tendency to speak his mind. He has often articulated Third World woes, and has openly challenged US assumptions, especially its "refusal to understand what ails the poorer nations and its insistence that their cultural framework be altered to fit in with the Western notion of correct behaviour".

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Over the last decade the East Asian economic miracle saw rising economies with the US too focusing its investments in the region. But this inflow of investment funds in effect created a bubble economy. The warning signs were dismissed as alarmist. And when the decline came, the shocks reverberated through the region. South Korea was the first to fall, followed by Thailand and Indonesia. Malaysia fights a rearguard action to prevent the IMF from dictating terms. But, as Mahathir poi-AFP nts out, the problem is it does not matter whether you manage the economy well or let it slide, it goes down with every reverberation in the global market.

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A close friend from his medical school days, who died recently, said of Mahathir: "He is well read, thinks ahead of his time, is well focused on what he wants, does not suffer fools, but he often works in a void. His problem is an inability to lead, in the Malay fashion, by holding hands." At the same time, it is this contradiction of his Malay background imbued with his Indian antecedents that has propelled him into prominence. And while it is true, as one of his opponents puts it, "that the longer he stays in office, the sharper the antagonisms towards him," Mahathir can't be written off yet. For that you need another leader of his stature—there seem to be none yet.

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