I cannot say it any better than wikipedia...
(Source Wikipedia, 3/14/2012, Muhathir Mohamad)
"
Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad (pronounced
[maˈhadɪr bɪn moˈhamat]). (born 10 July 1925) is a
Malaysian politician who was the fourth
Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the post for 22 years from 1981 to 2003, making him Malaysia's longest serving Prime Minister. His political career spanned almost 40 years.
Born and raised in
Alor Setar,
Kedah, Mahathir excelled at school and became a medical doctor. He became active in the
United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), Malaysia's largest political party, before entering parliament in 1964. He served one term before losing his seat, before falling out with the then Prime Minister,
Tunku Abdul Rahman and being expelled from UMNO. When
Abdul Rahman resigned, Mahathir re-entered UMNO and parliament, and was promoted to the Cabinet. By 1976, he had risen to Deputy Prime Minister, and in 1981 was sworn in as Prime Minister after the resignation of his predecessor,
Hussein Onn.
During Mahathir's tenure as Prime Minister, Malaysia experienced rapid modernisation and economic growth, and his government initiated a series of bold infrastructure projects. He was a dominant political figure, winning five consecutive general elections and seeing off all of his rivals for the leadership of UMNO. However, his accumulation of power came at the expense of the independence of the judiciary and the traditional powers and privileges of Malaysia's royalty. He also deployed the controversial
Internal Security Act to detain activists, non-mainstream religious figures, and political opponents including his sacked deputy,
Anwar Ibrahim. Mahathir's record of curbing civil liberties and his antagonism to western diplomatic interests and economic policy made his relationships with the likes of the US, Britain and Australia difficult. As Prime Minister, he was an advocate of third-world development and a prominent international activist for causes such as the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and the interests of Bosnians in the 1990s
Balkans conflict.
He remains an active political figure in his retirement, having become a strident critic of his handpicked successor,
Abdullah Badawi, and actively supporting Abdullah's replacement by
Najib Razak
[edit] Early years (1981–1987)
Mahathir exercised caution in his first two years in power, consolidating his leadership of UMNO and, with victory in the
1982 general election, the government.
[32][33] In 1983, Mahathir commenced the first of a number of battles he would have with Malaysia's royalty during his premiership. The position of
Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the Malaysian head of state, was due to rotate in to either the elderly
Idris Shah II of
Perak or the controversial
Iskandar of
Johor. Mahathir had grave reservations about the two sultans. Both were activist rulers of their own states and Iskandar had only a few years earlier been convicted of manslaughter.
[34][35] Mahathir tried to pre-emptively limit the power that the new Agong could wield over his government, introducing to parliament amendments to the
Constitution to deem the Agong to assent to any bill that had not been assented within 15 days of passage by parliament. The proposal would also remove the power to declare a state of emergency from the Agong and placed it with the Prime Minister. The Agong at the time,
Ahmad Shah of
Pahang, agreed with the proposals in principle but baulked when he realised that the proposal would also deem Sultans to assent to laws passed by state assemblies. Supported by the Sultans, the Agong refused to assent to the constitutional amendments, which had by then passed both houses of parliament with comfortable majorities.
[36][37] When the public became aware of the impasse, and the Sultans refused to compromise with the government, Mahathir took the streets to demonstrate public support for his position in mass rallies. The press took the side of the government, although a large minority of Malays, including conservative UMNO politicians, and an even larger proportion of the Chinese community, supported the sultans. After five months, the crisis resolved, as Mahathir and the sultans agreed to a compromise. The Agong would retain the power to declare a state of emergency, but if he refused to assent to a bill, the bill would be returned to parliament, which could then override the Agong's veto.
[38]
Mahathir's government used tariffs to support the development of the
Proton as a Malaysian-made car.
On the economic front, Mahathir inherited the
New Economic Policy from his predecessors, which was designed to improve the economic position of the
bumiputera (Malaysia's Malays and indigenous peoples) through targets and affirmative action in areas such as corporate ownership and university admission.
[39] Mahathir also actively pursued privatisation of government enterprises from the early 1980s, both for the liberal economic reasons it was being pursued by contemporaries such as
Margaret Thatcher, and because he felt that combined with affirmative action for the bumiputera it could provide economic opportunities for bumiputera businesses.
[40] His government privatised airlines, utilities and telecommunication firms, accelerating to a rate of about 50 privatisations a year by the mid-1990s.
[41] While privatisation generally improved the working conditions of Malaysians in privatised industries and raised significant revenue for the government, many privatisations occurred in the absence of open tendering processes and benefited Malays who supported UMNO. One of the most notable infrastructure projects at the time was the construction of the
North–South Expressway, a motorway running from the Thai border to Singapore; the contract to construct the expressway was awarded to a business venture of UMNO.
[42] Mahathir also oversaw the establishment of the car manufacturer
Proton as a joint venture between the Malaysian government and
Mitsubishi. By the end of the 1980s, Proton had overcome poor demand and losses to become, with the support of protective tariffs, the largest car maker in Southeast Asia and a profitable enterprise.
[43]
In Mahathir's early years as Prime Minister, Malaysia was experiencing a resurgence of Islam among Malays. Malays were becoming more religious and more conservative. PAS, which had in the 1970s joined UMNO in government, responded to the resurgence by taking an increasingly strident Islamist stand under the leadership of the man who in 1969 had defeated Mahathir for his parliamentary seat,
Yusof Rawa. Mahathir tried to appeal to religious voters by establishing Islamic institutions such as the
International Islamic University of Malaysia which could promote Islamic education under the government's oversight. He also attracted
Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the
Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (ABIM) to join UMNO. In some cases, Mahathir's government employed repression against more extreme exponents of Islamism. Ibrahim Libya, a popular Islamist leader, was killed in a
police shoot-out in 1985;
Al-Arqam, a religious sect, was banned and its leader,
Ashaari Mohammad, arrested under the Internal Security Act.
[44] Mahathir comprehensively defeated PAS at the polls in 1986, winning 83 seats of the 84 seats it contested, leaving PAS with just one MP.
[45]
[edit] Exerting power (1987–1990)
Any illusion that the 1986 election may have created about Mahathir's political dominance was short-lived. In 1987, he was challenged for the presidency of UMNO, and effectively the prime ministership, by
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. Razaleigh's career had gone backwards under Mahathir, being demoted from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Razaleigh was supported by Musa, who had resigned as Deputy Prime Minister the previous year. While Musa and Mahathir were originally close allies, the two had fallen out during Mahathir's premiership, with Musa claiming that Mahathir no longer trusted him. Razaleigh and Musa ran for the UMNO presidency and deputy presidency on a joint ticket against Mahathir and his new choice for deputy, Ghafar Baba. The tickets were known as Team B and Team A respectively. Mahathir's Team A enjoyed the support of the press, most party heavyweights, and even
Iskandar, now the Agong, although some significant figures, such as future prime minister
Abdullah Badawi, supported Team B. In the election, held on 24 April 1987, Team A prevailed. Mahathir was re-elected a by a narrow margin, receiving the votes of 761 party delegates to Razaleigh's 718. Ghafar defeated Musa by a slightly larger margin. Mahathir responded by purging seven Team B supporters from his ministry, while Team B refused to accept defeat and initiated litigation. In an unexpected decision in February 1988, the
High Court ruled that UMNO was an illegal organisation as some of its branches had not been lawfully registered.
[46][47] Each faction raced to register a new party under the UMNO name. Mahathir's side successfully registered the name "UMNO Baru" ("new UMNO"), while Team B's application to register "UMNO Malaysia" was rejected. UMNO Malaysia under the leadership of
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, with the support of both of Malaysia's surviving former prime ministers Abdul Rahman and Hussein, registered the party
Semangat 46 instead.
[48]
Having survived the political crisis at least temporarily, Mahathir moved against the judiciary, fearing a successful appeal by Team B against the decision to register UMNO Baru. He steered an amendment to the Constitution through parliament to remove the general power of the High Courts to conduct judicial review. The High Courts could now only engage in judicial review where specific acts of parliament gave them the power to do so. The Lord President of the
Supreme Court,
Salleh Abas, responded by sending a letter of protest to the Agong. Mahathir then suspended Salleh for "gross misbehaviour and conduct", ostensibly because the letter was a breach of protocol. A tribunal setup by Mahathir found Salleh guilty and recommended to the Agong that Salleh be dismissed. Five other judges of the court supported Salleh, and were suspended by Mahathir. A newly constituted court dismissed Team B's appeal, allowing Mahathir's faction to continue to use the name UMNO. According to Milne and Mauzy, the episode destroyed the independence of Malaysia's judiciary.
[49]
At the same time as the political and judicial crises, Mahathir initiated a crackdown on opposition dissidents with the use of the Internal Security Act. The appointment of a number of administrators who did not speak Mandarin to Chinese schools provoked an outcry among Chinese Malaysians to the point where UMNO's coalition partners the
Malaysian Chinese Association and
Gerakan joined the
Democratic Action Party (DAP) in protesting the appointments. UMNO's Youth wing held a provocative protest that triggered a shooting by a lone Malay gunman, and only Mahathir's interference prevented UMNO from staging a larger protest. Instead, Mahathir ordered what Wain calls "the biggest crackdown on political dissent Malaysia had ever seen". Under the police operation codenamed "Lalang", 119 people were arrested and detained without charge under the Internal Security Act. Mahathir argued that the detentions were necessary to prevent a repeat of the 1969 race riots. Most of the detainees were prominent opposition activists, including the leader of the DAP,
Lim Kit Siang, and nine of his fellow MPs. Three newspapers sympathetic to the opposition were shut down.
[50]
Mahathir suffered a heart attack in early 1989,
[51] but recovered to lead Barisan Nasional to victory in the
1990 election. Semangat 46 failed to make any headway outside Razaleigh's home state of Kelantan (Musa had since rejoined UMNO).
[52]
[edit] Economic development to financial crisis (1990–1998)
The expiry of the
Malaysian New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1990 gave Mahathir the opportunity to outline his economic vision for Malaysia. In 1991, he announced
Vision 2020, under which Malaysia would aim to become a fully developed country within 30 years.
[53] The target would require average economic growth of approximately seven per cent of gross domestic product per annum.
[54] One of Vision 2020's features would be to gradually break down ethnic barriers. Vision 2020 was accompanied by the NEP's replacement, the
National Development Policy (NDP), under which some government programs designed to benefit the bumiputera exclusively were opened up to other ethnicities.
[55] The NDP achieved success in one of its main aims, poverty reduction. By 1995, less than nine per cent of Malaysians lived in poverty and income inequality had narrowed.
[56] Mahathir's government cut corporate taxes and liberalised financial regulations to attract foreign investment. The economy grew by over nine per cent per annum until 1997 prompting other developing countries to try to emulate Mahathir's policies.
[57] Much of the credit for Malaysia's economic development in the 1990s went to
Anwar Ibrahim, appointed by Mahathir as Finance Minister in 1991.
[58] The government rode the economic wave and won the
1995 election with an increased majority.
[59]
Mahathir initiated a series of major infrastructure projects in the 1990s. One of the largest was the
Multimedia Super Corridor, an area south of
Kuala Lumpur, in the mould of
Silicon Valley, designed to cater for the information technology industry. However, the project failed to generate the investment anticipated.
[60] Other Mahathir projects included the development of
Putrajaya as the home of Malaysia's public service, and bringing a
Formula One Grand Prix to
Sepang.
[61] One of the most controversial developments was the
Bakun Dam in
Sarawak. The ambitious hydro-electric project was intended to carry electricity across the
South China Sea to satisfy electricity demand in peninsular Malaysia. To deliver the project, Mahathir and the local Barisan Nasional government selected a head contractor close to Mahathir without an open tendering process. The project subsequently suffered from environmental protests, conflicts between contractors, and opposition from the 10,000 residents who would be forcibly displaced from the Sarawak jungle. Work on the dam was eventually suspended due to the
Asian financial crisis.
[62]
The financial crisis threatened to devastate Malaysia. The value of the
ringgit plummeted due to currency speculation, foreign investment fled, and the main stock exchange index fell by over 75 per cent. At the urging of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government cut government spending and raised interest rates, which only served to exacerbate the economic situation. In 1998, Mahathir reversed this policy course in defiance of the IMF and his own deputy, Anwar. He increased government spending and fixed the ringgit to the US dollar. The result confounded his international critics and the IMF. Malaysia recovered from the crisis faster than its Southeast Asian neighbours. In the domestic sphere, it was a political triumph. Amidst the economic events of 1998, Mahathir had sacked Anwar as Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, and he could now claim to have rescued the economy in spite of Anwar's policies.
[63]
In his second decade in office, Mahathir had again found himself battling Malaysia's royalty. In 1992, Sultan Iskandar's son, a representative
hockey player, was suspended from competition for five years for assaulting an opponent. Iskandar retaliated by pulling all Johor hockey teams out of national competitions. When his decision was criticised by a local coach, Iskandar ordered him to his palace and beat him. The federal parliament unanimously censured Iskandar, and Mahathir leapt at the opportunity to remove the constitutional immunity of the sultans from civil and criminal suits. The press backed Mahathir and, in an unprecedented development, started airing allegations of misconduct by members of Malaysia's royal families. As the press revealed examples of the rulers' extravagant wealth, Mahathir resolved to cut financial support to royal households. With the press and the government pitted against them, the sultans capitulated to the government's proposals. Their powers to deny assent to bills were limited by further constitutional amendments passed in 1994. With the status and powers of the Malaysian royalty diminished, Wain writes that by the mid-1990s Mahathir had become the country's "uncrowned king".
[64]
[edit] The final years and succession (1998–2003)
By the mid-1990s it had become clear that the most serious threat to Mahathir's power was the leadership ambition of his deputy, Anwar. Anwar began to distance himself from Mahathir, overtly promoting his superior religious credentials and appearing to suggest he favoured loosening the restrictions on civil liberties that had become a hallmark of Mahathir's premiership.
[65] However, Mahathir continued to back Anwar as his successor until their relationship collapsed dramatically during the Asian financial crisis. Their positions gradually diverged, with Mahathir abandoning the tight monetary and fiscal policies urged by the IMF. At the UMNO General Assembly in 1998, a leading Anwar supporter,
Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, criticised the government for not doing enough to combat corruption and cronyism. As Mahathir took the reins of Malaysia's economic policy over the coming months, Anwar was increasingly sidelined. On 2 September, he was dismissed as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, and promptly expelled from UMNO. No immediate reasons were given for the dismissal, although the media speculated that it related to lurid allegations of sexual misconduct circulated in a "poison pen letter" at the general assembly.
[66] As more allegations surfaced, large public rallies were held in support of Anwar. On 20 September, he was arrested and placed in detention under the Internal Security Act.
[67]
Anwar stood trial on four charges of corruption, arising from allegations that Anwar abused his power by ordering police to intimidate persons who had alleged Anwar had sodomised them. Before Anwar's trial, Mahathir told the press that he was convinced of Anwar's guilt. He was found guilty in April 1999 and sentenced to six years in prison.
[68] In another trial shortly after, Anwar was sentenced to another nine years in prison on a conviction for sodomy.
[69] The sodomy conviction was overturned on appeal after Mahathir left office.
[70]
While Mahathir had vanquished his rival, it came at a cost to his standing in the international community and domestic politics. US Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright defended Anwar as a "highly respectable leader" who was "entitled to due process and a fair trial".
[71] In a speech in Kuala Lumpur, which Mahathir attended, US Vice President
Al Gore stated that "we continue to hear calls for democracy", including "among the brave people of Malaysia".
[72] At the
APEC summit in 1999, Canadian Prime Minister
Jean Chrétien refused to meet Mahathir, while his foreign minister met with Anwar's wife,
Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.
[73] Wan Azizah had formed a liberal opposition party, the
National Justice Party (
Keadilan) to fight the
1999 election. UMNO lost 18 seats and two state governments as large numbers of Malay voters flocked to PAS and Keadilan, many in protest at the treatment of Anwar.
[74]
At UMNO's general assembly in 2002, Mahathir announced that he would resign as Prime Minister, only for supporters to rush to the stage and convince him tearfully to remain. He subsequently fixed his retirement for October 2003, giving him time to ensure an orderly and uncontroversial transition to his anointed successor,
Abdullah Badawi.
[75] Having spent over 22 years in office, Mahathir was the world's longest-serving elected leader when he retired.
[76] He remains Malaysia's longest-serving prime minister."
Walking within the 'Golden Triangle' of Kuala Lumpur metro area you see how developed it is as a result of massive infrastructure projects which took place, mostly during the tenure of Muhathir
Massive metro infrastructure projects are still taking place and it is evident from contruction sites for skyscrapers you can spot adjacent to KL Central Station, which is the center of the Kuala Lumpur 'Golden Triangle'.
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