D-day for Dr M After months of bashing the government,
D-day for Dr M After months of bashing the government
Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad feels he is losing his popularity and has said he would accept it if the Abdullah Badawi administration wants to terminate his post as advisor to national car company Proton.
The 81-year-old former premier has mounted relentless criticism in the past few months on Abdullah, especially over his running of the country.
Talking to reporters in the beach resort island of Langkawi yesterday, Mahathir said he would accept it if the government wanted to terminate his posts as Proton and Langkawi Development Authority advisors, among others.
"I will also abide (by the decision) if the supreme council of UMNO (the ruling party) wants to suspend my party membership...This is their right as the government and party," he said after visiting several development projects in the island, national news agency Bernama reported.
Mahathir also said he realised that he was losing popularity, and as such, anything could be done to him, according to the report. Two functions he was to attend, one in Johor and the other in Baling, had been cancelled, which showed that he was becoming unpopular, Mahathir added.
The former premier said he was "seriously considering" a suggestion by a party division not to be too critical of the government and Abdullah
The Umno supreme council, which meets today, may discuss Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s position as adviser in several government agencies and companies.
Umno supreme council member Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said the matter was not discussed at the Cabinet meeting yesterday.
Asked about Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s stand on Dr Mahathir’s criticisms, Nazri said the Prime Minister touched briefly on it, but it was not something that the Cabinet was not aware o
Several supreme council members, including Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid and Entrepreneurial and Cooperative Development Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, had called on the council to discuss the matter
.Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.
Dear Dr M, do you still remember the case of Anwar Ibrahim?
Mahathir VS Abdullah: Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't
Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't
PM Abdullah cannot seem to satisfy Dr Mahathir no matter how far backwards he bends over. Who's calling the shots in the country anyway?
WHAT started as talks meant to pave the way for eventual reconciliation seem to have broken down irretrievably. Indeed, the relationship between ex-premier Mahathir Mohamad and current incumbent Abdullah Ahmad Badawi seems irreparably damaged.
What irks Dr Mahathir now seems to be everything the government does and does not do. He told Associated Press that he was 'ashamed' of picking Mr Abdullah as his successor. 'My judgement of people is faulty,' he told the news agency. 'I had this man whom I thought was harmless. I thought he would continue, maybe even improve on what I had done. I fully expected him to administer the country well, not to try and prove that he is better than me by showing how bad I am,' Dr Mahathir said.
There you have it. Dr Mahathir clearly thinks that Mr Abdullah is out to tarnish his legacy. Now what might have brought this on?
It probably started very early in Mr Abdullah's administration. Keen to pare down the budget deficit - which was running at 5.3 per cent of gross domestic product when he came to power - Mr Abdullah began scrapping what he termed 'mega projects' like a RM14 billion (S$6 billion) railway project running down the length of Peninsular Malaysia. That could not have pleased Dr Mahathir for the term 'mega projects' is synonymous with some of the profligate excesses of his administration.
Even so, Dr Mahathir kept his feelings to himself although it did not stop him from privately complaining about the administration to various people. Indeed, by 2005 it was an open secret in Kuala Lumpur that Dr Mahathir wasn't happy with the administration although it wasn't clear at the time if his unhappiness extended to Mr Abdullah. The former leader finally snapped when Mr Abdullah cancelled the half-bridge project - to replace Malaysia's side of the Causeway linking Singapore - first proposed by the Mahathir administration. To Dr Mahathir, that was tantamount to a national loss of face and kow-towing to a neighbour that his administration had had difficulties with.
But the scale and ferocity of Dr Mahathir's attacks on Mr Abdullah may have now gone beyond the pale. Dr Mahathir says that Mr Abdullah is running 'a police state', and that, essentially, the premier either has to resign or change his policies.
What policies he refers to exactly are unclear because according to the former premier, everything - from foreign and economic policy to politics and the Malaysia-Japanese free trade area - that Mr Abdullah does is flawed or ill-conceived.
Getting back into Dr Mahathir's good books would therefore necessitate Mr Abdullah to restore all those projects he cancelled including the half-bridge. He might also consider sacking a couple of ministers that Dr Mahathir disapproves of, changing the editors of the New Straits Times, and closing down the PM's Office as Dr Mahathir disapproves of the coterie around the premier.
Mr Abdullah should also consider a new foreign policy that is less friendly to the US and Singapore, give up his notions about boosting agriculture in the economy, and forget about things like free trade pacts.
Then there is the question of Proton and its sale of motorcycle maker NV Augusta which Dr Mahathir condemns. There is also Dr Mahathir's need to address the annual assembly of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno). Finally, there is the need to ask his family to get out of business and politics altogether.
Mr Abdullah could do all these things, of course - but then who would be prime minister?
(Source: Business Times )
Abdullah's Fourth Year: Less Hope, More Sympathy ?
Going into his fourth year as Malaysia's premier, Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi's luck continues to hold out. In fact, it seems to get better and better.
The "doses of venom" that his predecessor Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammed unleashed against him seem to have backfired; bringing the Prime Minister much needed general sympathy, especially from Malay leaders, and significantly from outside UMNO as well as from within.
Mahathir's apparent disregard for Malay cultural sensibilities is legendary. This was first made obvious in 1969 when he openly attacked the first premier, Tunku Abdul Rahman, and was expelled from the party as a result. The latest disregard came when he decided to reveal details of his one-to-one meeting with his successor on 22 October 2006, held just two days before the end of the fasting month. The timing of the meeting had given Malays hope that reconciliation between their two most respected leaders was on the cards.
Such hope turned out to be badly misplaced, and one wonders if Mahathir can ever be forgiven for this utter lack of good judgment. Nonetheless, the Mahathir factor has indelibly wedged itself in any assessment of the successes and failures of the Badawi administration. Thanks to Mahathir's Hari Raya faux pas, Abdullah Badawi may well have weathered the worst of the former premier's assaults and successfully crossed the Rubicon in the process.
Over the past year, support for Datuk Seri Abdullah wavered at the grassroots, even as it grew at the top. He was seen to be lacking in ideas and the business ventures of his son Kamaluddin and his son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin attracted criticism that he could not defend satisfactorily. The reduction in government subsidies that led to a rise in fuel prices in February and electricity rates in May ended with demonstrations on the streets of Kuala Lumpur.
The Prime Minister's delay in carrying out reforms within the police force began to be seen as symptom either of a lack of will or a lack of ability. A series of reshuffles among the top brass within the police force – probably a compromise between the service and the government – suggested that Abdullah would not induct the police watchdog body that his own commission had recommended. Furthermore, the powerful UMNO Youth publicly announced its stand in February against such an institution.
Tension had also been mounting on the inter-religious front. A series of seminars organised by non-Muslim bodies to discuss Article 11, which guarantees Malaysians freedom of worship, were harassed by illegal gatherings of Muslim groups. Instead of enforcing the law and guaranteeing the right of those already granted permission to hold these seminars, the Abdullah regime instructed that they be cancelled, thus giving in to the illegal demonstrators.
The Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) came under fire in October after one of its reports handed to the government in February as advice for the Ninth Malaysia Plan attracted public attention. The study found that bumiputeras owned 45% of corporate equity, and not around 19%, as the government had claimed since 1990 to justify continued affirmative action.
Under pressure from many Malay quarters, the president of the think-tank ASLI, which controls CPPS, Datuk Mirzan, incidentally the eldest son of Mahathir, withdrew the report as "faulty". This caused CPPS chief, the renowned former World Bank economist Lim Teck Ghee, to resign in protest.
This incident further dampened public hope for institutional reforms during Abdullah's term. There was widespread concern that religious and academic freedom was not being respected. On top of that came accusations that the mainstream newspapers, largely owned by ruling parties, were becoming more centrally controlled. Calls for a review of the judicial crisis of 1988 many consider to be the beginning of the end for what had hitherto been perceived as an independent judiciary, were also turned down by Abdullah's administration.
The decision not to repeal any draconian legislature put into place during the Mahathir years detracts further from the hope that the government is committed to institutional reform.
For all these public grievances however, Abdullah's administration has been earning plaudits for getting certain things right.
The Cabinet reshuffle that Abdullah carried out in February, though lacking in radical change, succeeded in shoring up support for him among UMNO's leaders. It ended the uncertainty that had plagued the government for many months.
The Prime Minister's decision to scrap the Johor-Singapore bridge project on April 12 was met with great relief in most segments of Malaysian society. The Cabinet backed Abdullah fully, which must have shocked Mahathir. This necessarily made Mahathir's crash-through-or-crash style of politics that had led to the impasse between the two countries look worse than ever.
In concert, the Ninth Malaysia Plan has taken on a political dimension, possibly in response to Mahathir's claims that lower government spending was hurting the Malays, especially in the construction sector where government contracts are critical. A staggering amount of investment is being earmarked for Southern Johor and Penang. Separately, huge investments in agriculture are also planned.
The decision to postpone UMNO elections due to have been held next year frees the administration from much infighting, limits Mahathir's possibilities to spin intrigue against the government, and potentially secures Khairy Jamaluddin's path to a parliamentary seat.
When the pluses and the minuses are considered, Abdullah Badawi seems to land on the right side. Mahathir's attacks have generated streams of sympathy for Abdullah at a time when doubts were established about the administration's sagging ambitions and lack of vision. Paradoxically, in assessing Abdullah's work over the last year, Mahathir's attacks have helped Abdullah more than the former is able to admit.
(Ooi Kee Beng)
Ooi Kee Beng is a Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Malaysia Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Tun Mahathir Asia
Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad feels he is losing his popularity and has said he would accept it if the Abdullah Badawi administration wants to terminate his post as advisor to national car company Proton.
The 81-year-old former premier has mounted relentless criticism in the past few months on Abdullah, especially over his running of the country.
Talking to reporters in the beach resort island of Langkawi yesterday, Mahathir said he would accept it if the government wanted to terminate his posts as Proton and Langkawi Development Authority advisors, among others.
"I will also abide (by the decision) if the supreme council of UMNO (the ruling party) wants to suspend my party membership...This is their right as the government and party," he said after visiting several development projects in the island, national news agency Bernama reported.
Mahathir also said he realised that he was losing popularity, and as such, anything could be done to him, according to the report. Two functions he was to attend, one in Johor and the other in Baling, had been cancelled, which showed that he was becoming unpopular, Mahathir added.
The former premier said he was "seriously considering" a suggestion by a party division not to be too critical of the government and Abdullah
"If the government wants to terminate my posts as Proton and Langkawi Development Authority (Lada) adviser, among others, I will abide (by the decision). If the Umno supreme council wants to suspend my party membership, I will also abide,"
-- Dr Mahathir
Umno supreme council member Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said the matter was not discussed at the Cabinet meeting yesterday.
Asked about Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s stand on Dr Mahathir’s criticisms, Nazri said the Prime Minister touched briefly on it, but it was not something that the Cabinet was not aware o
Several supreme council members, including Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid and Entrepreneurial and Cooperative Development Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, had called on the council to discuss the matter
.Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.
Dear Dr M, do you still remember the case of Anwar Ibrahim?
Anwar was fired from the Cabinet on September 2, 1998, amid police reports that he was under investigation. The following day, he was expelled from UMNO. On September 14On September 20, Anwar addressed a protest gathering of nearly 100,000 people in Kuala Lumpur, after which a number of his supporters marched to Mahathir's then official residence "Sri Perdana" demanding reformasi (economic and political reforms) and Mahathir's resignation. This march, a rare event in Malaysia, caused concern in the Government, which feared that it could lead to chaos and racist fights amongst Malaysians. Anwar was seen as the new, liberal face of Malaysians and Mahathir as the protector of the Malays. Anwar's attacks on the suspected nepotism of Mahathir's rule were fortified by widespread discontent over the perceived suppression of democratic rights in Malaysia. Critics questioned Anwar's actions, wondering why he had waited until he was sacked to publicly challenge Mahathir's actions. Some suggested that he had engaged in nepotistic and corrupt activities himself, and was using the issues to topple Mahathir. It was also possible that he harbored hopes of replacing Mahathir although Anwar was no longer a member of UMNO and every prime minister had been an UMNO leader.
That night, Anwar's home was raided by a masked and armed SWAT team from the Royal Malaysian Police. His arrest was announced several hours later, as was that of several of Anwar's supporters, although most of them were later released.
Mahathir VS Abdullah: Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't
Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't
PM Abdullah cannot seem to satisfy Dr Mahathir no matter how far backwards he bends over. Who's calling the shots in the country anyway?
WHAT started as talks meant to pave the way for eventual reconciliation seem to have broken down irretrievably. Indeed, the relationship between ex-premier Mahathir Mohamad and current incumbent Abdullah Ahmad Badawi seems irreparably damaged.
What irks Dr Mahathir now seems to be everything the government does and does not do. He told Associated Press that he was 'ashamed' of picking Mr Abdullah as his successor. 'My judgement of people is faulty,' he told the news agency. 'I had this man whom I thought was harmless. I thought he would continue, maybe even improve on what I had done. I fully expected him to administer the country well, not to try and prove that he is better than me by showing how bad I am,' Dr Mahathir said.
There you have it. Dr Mahathir clearly thinks that Mr Abdullah is out to tarnish his legacy. Now what might have brought this on?
It probably started very early in Mr Abdullah's administration. Keen to pare down the budget deficit - which was running at 5.3 per cent of gross domestic product when he came to power - Mr Abdullah began scrapping what he termed 'mega projects' like a RM14 billion (S$6 billion) railway project running down the length of Peninsular Malaysia. That could not have pleased Dr Mahathir for the term 'mega projects' is synonymous with some of the profligate excesses of his administration.
Even so, Dr Mahathir kept his feelings to himself although it did not stop him from privately complaining about the administration to various people. Indeed, by 2005 it was an open secret in Kuala Lumpur that Dr Mahathir wasn't happy with the administration although it wasn't clear at the time if his unhappiness extended to Mr Abdullah. The former leader finally snapped when Mr Abdullah cancelled the half-bridge project - to replace Malaysia's side of the Causeway linking Singapore - first proposed by the Mahathir administration. To Dr Mahathir, that was tantamount to a national loss of face and kow-towing to a neighbour that his administration had had difficulties with.
But the scale and ferocity of Dr Mahathir's attacks on Mr Abdullah may have now gone beyond the pale. Dr Mahathir says that Mr Abdullah is running 'a police state', and that, essentially, the premier either has to resign or change his policies.
What policies he refers to exactly are unclear because according to the former premier, everything - from foreign and economic policy to politics and the Malaysia-Japanese free trade area - that Mr Abdullah does is flawed or ill-conceived.
Getting back into Dr Mahathir's good books would therefore necessitate Mr Abdullah to restore all those projects he cancelled including the half-bridge. He might also consider sacking a couple of ministers that Dr Mahathir disapproves of, changing the editors of the New Straits Times, and closing down the PM's Office as Dr Mahathir disapproves of the coterie around the premier.
Mr Abdullah should also consider a new foreign policy that is less friendly to the US and Singapore, give up his notions about boosting agriculture in the economy, and forget about things like free trade pacts.
Then there is the question of Proton and its sale of motorcycle maker NV Augusta which Dr Mahathir condemns. There is also Dr Mahathir's need to address the annual assembly of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno). Finally, there is the need to ask his family to get out of business and politics altogether.
Mr Abdullah could do all these things, of course - but then who would be prime minister?
(Source: Business Times )
Abdullah's Fourth Year: Less Hope, More Sympathy ?
Going into his fourth year as Malaysia's premier, Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi's luck continues to hold out. In fact, it seems to get better and better.
The "doses of venom" that his predecessor Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammed unleashed against him seem to have backfired; bringing the Prime Minister much needed general sympathy, especially from Malay leaders, and significantly from outside UMNO as well as from within.
Mahathir's apparent disregard for Malay cultural sensibilities is legendary. This was first made obvious in 1969 when he openly attacked the first premier, Tunku Abdul Rahman, and was expelled from the party as a result. The latest disregard came when he decided to reveal details of his one-to-one meeting with his successor on 22 October 2006, held just two days before the end of the fasting month. The timing of the meeting had given Malays hope that reconciliation between their two most respected leaders was on the cards.
Such hope turned out to be badly misplaced, and one wonders if Mahathir can ever be forgiven for this utter lack of good judgment. Nonetheless, the Mahathir factor has indelibly wedged itself in any assessment of the successes and failures of the Badawi administration. Thanks to Mahathir's Hari Raya faux pas, Abdullah Badawi may well have weathered the worst of the former premier's assaults and successfully crossed the Rubicon in the process.
Over the past year, support for Datuk Seri Abdullah wavered at the grassroots, even as it grew at the top. He was seen to be lacking in ideas and the business ventures of his son Kamaluddin and his son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin attracted criticism that he could not defend satisfactorily. The reduction in government subsidies that led to a rise in fuel prices in February and electricity rates in May ended with demonstrations on the streets of Kuala Lumpur.
The Prime Minister's delay in carrying out reforms within the police force began to be seen as symptom either of a lack of will or a lack of ability. A series of reshuffles among the top brass within the police force – probably a compromise between the service and the government – suggested that Abdullah would not induct the police watchdog body that his own commission had recommended. Furthermore, the powerful UMNO Youth publicly announced its stand in February against such an institution.
Tension had also been mounting on the inter-religious front. A series of seminars organised by non-Muslim bodies to discuss Article 11, which guarantees Malaysians freedom of worship, were harassed by illegal gatherings of Muslim groups. Instead of enforcing the law and guaranteeing the right of those already granted permission to hold these seminars, the Abdullah regime instructed that they be cancelled, thus giving in to the illegal demonstrators.
The Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) came under fire in October after one of its reports handed to the government in February as advice for the Ninth Malaysia Plan attracted public attention. The study found that bumiputeras owned 45% of corporate equity, and not around 19%, as the government had claimed since 1990 to justify continued affirmative action.
Under pressure from many Malay quarters, the president of the think-tank ASLI, which controls CPPS, Datuk Mirzan, incidentally the eldest son of Mahathir, withdrew the report as "faulty". This caused CPPS chief, the renowned former World Bank economist Lim Teck Ghee, to resign in protest.
This incident further dampened public hope for institutional reforms during Abdullah's term. There was widespread concern that religious and academic freedom was not being respected. On top of that came accusations that the mainstream newspapers, largely owned by ruling parties, were becoming more centrally controlled. Calls for a review of the judicial crisis of 1988 many consider to be the beginning of the end for what had hitherto been perceived as an independent judiciary, were also turned down by Abdullah's administration.
The decision not to repeal any draconian legislature put into place during the Mahathir years detracts further from the hope that the government is committed to institutional reform.
For all these public grievances however, Abdullah's administration has been earning plaudits for getting certain things right.
The Cabinet reshuffle that Abdullah carried out in February, though lacking in radical change, succeeded in shoring up support for him among UMNO's leaders. It ended the uncertainty that had plagued the government for many months.
The Prime Minister's decision to scrap the Johor-Singapore bridge project on April 12 was met with great relief in most segments of Malaysian society. The Cabinet backed Abdullah fully, which must have shocked Mahathir. This necessarily made Mahathir's crash-through-or-crash style of politics that had led to the impasse between the two countries look worse than ever.
In concert, the Ninth Malaysia Plan has taken on a political dimension, possibly in response to Mahathir's claims that lower government spending was hurting the Malays, especially in the construction sector where government contracts are critical. A staggering amount of investment is being earmarked for Southern Johor and Penang. Separately, huge investments in agriculture are also planned.
The decision to postpone UMNO elections due to have been held next year frees the administration from much infighting, limits Mahathir's possibilities to spin intrigue against the government, and potentially secures Khairy Jamaluddin's path to a parliamentary seat.
When the pluses and the minuses are considered, Abdullah Badawi seems to land on the right side. Mahathir's attacks have generated streams of sympathy for Abdullah at a time when doubts were established about the administration's sagging ambitions and lack of vision. Paradoxically, in assessing Abdullah's work over the last year, Mahathir's attacks have helped Abdullah more than the former is able to admit.
(Ooi Kee Beng)
Ooi Kee Beng is a Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Malaysia Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Tun Mahathir Asia
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