At 90+, Mahathir wants to rule Malaysia again
4 May 2018 3:04 AM IST
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia's former authoritarian leader Mahathir Mohamad wasn't invited to the forum that planned to debate whether at well past 90 years he was too old to be prime minister again. He turned up anyway. "As far as health is concerned, I am not senile yet," he announced to the stunned participants, maybe of whom stood and snapped photos with their smartphones.
For good measure, Mahathir sat in the front row and tweeted: "I'm here guys. Say it to my face." The recent move was trademark Mahathir.
During more than two decades of strong-arm rule, he rarely shied from aggressively confronting opponents, real and perceived. And at 92 his appetite for political brawling remains apparently unsated.The difference is that Mahathir's targets aren't those of yesteryear such as an imagined Jewish conspiracy against the Muslim world or the domestic opponents he ruthlessly silenced or imprisoned.
In an unlikely comeback, he's switched sides in Malaysian politics, coming out of retirement to unite an opposition that's seeking to end his former party's 60-year hold on power and oust his protege, Prime Minister Najib Razak, in May 9 elections. Mahathir, a maverick in the early days of his political career who survived expulsion from the dominant United Malays National Organization party, was the first commoner to become prime minister of Malaysia.
Though credited with transforming the Southeast Asian backwater into a modern economy, his dominance, like that of his contemporary, Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, was stifling.
Under his rule, the judiciary was a tool of the government, the media was muzzled and a system of economic privileges for the Malay majority remained entrenched. His retirement in 2003 was welcomed by many Malaysians who wanted the country's progress to be measured more by more than just GDP figures. Despite that mixed legacy, Mahathir is now welcomed by many "as a messianic figure, someone who has come back from the past" to redeem the country, said Rashaad Ali, a researcher at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. Even after stepping down, he remained influential, smoothing Najib's ascent to the top in 2009 after criticizing his first successor Abdullah Ahamad Badawi for poor economic management and also supported Najib in 2013 elections.
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