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Mahathir's report card as PM -Part II
Press Statement
by Ronnie Liu Tian Khiew
(Petaling Jaya, Friday):
Tun Mahathir Mohamad has just left his office in Putrajaya an hour ago. It's
time for me to write a second part to the "Mahathir's report card as PM"
which was written and released on Wednesday, 23 July 2003. I have promised
to explain why I think he has fared reasonably well on certain things, but
done rather poorly on so many other fields/projects/programs.
To me, it was a mistake for the late Datuk Harun Idris (former Selangor
Chief Minister) to bring Mahathir back into UMNO. Mahathir was sacked by the
late Tunku Abdul Rahman as an ultra-chauvinist of the Malay race. In any
case, no one could really block him from joining UMNO after the May 13
Incident which saw Tunku being ousted by leaders close or sympathetic to
Mahathir.
This man has done more bad than good as a prime minister of this country. He
should have retired two years after taking over the power, instead of 22
long years. He may then at least be remembered as a PM who has tried to
make Malaysia a better nation for he has created some very impressive and
memorable slogans, plus a few practices in line with them (government
servants to clock in at work, compulsory nametags, etc).
Just like many other dictators in the past, he too has started as a young
nationalist. He soon after reduced himself into just another typical South
East Asian political leaders, joining the ranks of Ferdinand Marcos and
Soeharto.
To begin with, all our past prime ministers do not believe in allowing their
children to sit on too many boards of directors except Mahathir.
The financial scandals we used to experienced in Malaysia before the
Mahathir era were nothing compared to the mega scandals such as BMf, Perwaja,
Maminco, Bank Negara forex and Time dotcom.
Even if we put aside our arguments on whether we should build the pricey
tallest twin towers, the new Putrajaya administrative hub or the Sepang F1
circuit, we can still safely argue that all these structures could be built
with half the price (minus the kickbacks and whatnots). And what about the
"first world infra-structure with third world maintenance" phenomenon so
aptly described by the new prime minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi.
The "kulitfication" (skin qualification) policy he practised to the fullest
had denied thousands of bright non-Bumi kids of a better education. Not to
mention the mediocre graduates who can't even string a proper sentence in
English.
Do people who think highly of Mahathir for what he has achieved in raising
our economic standard also aware that the South Koreans have surpassed us
2.5 times in term of per capita income in the last twenty years? Our
neighbour down south which has nothing in natural resources now holds one of
the world's highest foreign reserve; and what we have in our national coffer
is not even worth for mention. But of course, we are still much better off
than the Burmese, Indonesians and Bangladeshis.
But surely the man must have done something good for the country? Yes he
did.
He has performed quite well as a third world spokesperson. He always stood
up for the poor nations in the international arena, talking about
level-playing fields, human rights and democracy, reforms for the United
Nations, and the sins and shortcomings of Globalisation. But he had spoilt
it somewhat when he started passing remarks such as " Muslims to use oil as
weapons", " the war against Iraq is a war against Islam"? And his latest
divisive racist remark was " Jews rule the world by proxy, and they get
others to die for them". If his intention was to help the Muslim world and
Islam, he will realise one day that such remarks do more harms than good to
this great religion.
There is indeed political stability in the country during his time. But many
have paid a very heavy cost in the process but not him. Too many opposition
leaders have gone to the detention camp in Kamunting without trial under his
order.
His biggest achievement seem to be the capital control and dollar peg he
introduced instead of taking the "bitter medicine" from IMF. But why should
we believe him that our market crashed simply because of the doing of one
currency speculator (George Soros)? Has anyone ask him why our market could
go down so low in the first place? Did Mahathir ever complained about too
much "hot money" flowing into our country thus creating dangerous economic
bubbles before the 1997 financial and economic crisis?
Some may argue that Mahathir has slashed the powers of the king and the nine
sultans and that was good for democracy. But did he shift some of these
powers to himself or did he not?
The young Malaysian consumers in general should know that if not for the
protective tariffs enforced by Mahathir, they could have afford to buy much
better cars without have to constantly put up with faulty power-windows (a
very common feature with the not-so-happening national car).
His biggest disservice to the young people in Malaysia was killing the space
for independent thinking and freedom of expression. Many young people today
do not know history and dislike politics after 22 years of his iron rule.
Many of them do not know how to differentiate between what is good and what
is bad.
Malaysians do not know at this point how much money is left with Petronas,
EPF and other statutory funds for Abdullah Badawi.And the poor new PM has to
face unprecedented challenges such as globalisation, AFTA, WTO, K-economy
and terrorism, something Mahathir need not have to put up with. Even the
problems of crimes and social ills have gone up to an unseen level since the
last ten and twenty years under his former boss. Abdullah has certainly a
long list to look at.
Goodbye Tun Mahathir. And all the best, Dauk Seri Abdullah.
(31/10/2003)
* Ronnie Liu, DAP National Publicity Secretary
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