We need an opposition to remind us if we are making mistakes. When you are not opposed you think everything you do is right.
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s sixth Prime Minister
As we welcome 2020, we must marvel at the fact that Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad ―the world’s oldest prime minister ― continues to be sharp and witty.
Twenty months have passed and it doesn’t seem like the 94-year-old is about to slow down.
And with our weak economy, it looks unlikely that he is about to hand over the reins of government before completing a full term in office.
Who can blame him? With the ongoing spat by heir-apparent Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and his challenger Datuk Seri Azmin Ali, and the continued personal attacks on each other’s sexual preferences, it will be difficult for the good doctor to throw in the towel.
Yes, he will be 99 years old when the next Malaysian parliamentary election is due – unless he calls for a snap election.
To be fair, the fit, healthy and mentally-sound doctor needs a little more time to find the remedy to our perennial problems and see through his promise to ensure we become a developed country by 2030.
Last August, Dr Mahathir said he needed three years to put things right. Indeed, he needs more time to streamline some of his inexperienced and sometimes bungling Pakatan Harapan coalition members, comprising a motley crowd of old and new politicians who still don’t understand his thinking.
As the 19th century saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows and the PH coalition is just that!
But who would have thought that one of the founding fathers of Malaysia would team up with his arch enemies in the likes of PKR’s Anwar and DAP’s Lim Kit Siang to beat the political juggernaut called Umno.
Only a kampung man like Dr Mahathir had the courage to apologise with the people he tormented and for his detractors to agree for the greater good.
Raised in a poor neighbourhood in Alor Star, Kedah, Dr Mahathir has faced and is still facing a life full of challenges.
Dr Mahathir was a hard-working and disciplined boy motivated by his headmaster father who ensured his son mastered the English language, ensuring he was well ahead of his primary school peers.
After the war, he graduated from secondary school with high marks and enrolled to study medicine at the King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore. Dr Mahathir worked as a physician in government service.
Returning to Alor Setar in 1957 when Malaya got its independence, he set up his own practice in Kedah and then wanting to serve the people, ventured into the political arena.
It was in Kedah that Dr Mahathir found himself at odds with Malaysia’s first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, who was of Thai-Malay descent and apparently close to the Chinese community.
The fallout between Tunku and Dr Mahathir was accentuated because of the former’s pro-British attitude and his hobbies, which included horse racing and the Western style of socialising.
Blaming Tunku for the predicament of the Malays at that time, Dr Mahathir wrote ‘The Malay Dilemma’ triggering an open confrontation and with the banning of the book and his sacking.
And to get even with ‘Bapa Malaysia’, Dr Mahathir had a hand in helping Tun Abdul Razak Hussein fill in Tunku’s shoes after the May 13, 1969 riots.
His attacks against the Father of Independence led to his resignation in 1970.
But Dr Mahathir had a friend in Razak. Later in a quid pro quo gesture, the prime minister coaxed Dr Mahathir back into Umno, later bringing him into the cabinet as Education Minister in 1974.
As fate would have it and in Umno tradition, Razak’s son Datuk Seri Najib became Malaysia’s 7th prime minister in 2009 but he touched a sensitive nerve of Dr Mahathir accusing him of enriching himself.
In 2018, Dr Mahathir turned the tables on Najib who is himself now facing corruption charges.
Najib had underestimated Dr Mahathir whose political record goes back 70 years dominating the Malaysian scenario, a man who had won five consecutive general elections and held on to the leadership of Umno for almost 30 years.
In 1998, it was Anwar’s turn to have a run-in with the doctor then found himself in prison on sodomy charges.
When Dr Mahathir decided to call it quits in 2003, Tun Abdullah Badawi became prime minister. But after the 2008 election, the Barisan Nasional coalition which he led won a slim majority of seats but lost its two-thirds majority.
This paved the way for his deputy Najib to succeed as prime minister, a post he held for nine years before he too fell from grace.
Now all eyes are on Dr Mahathir’s apparent successor Anwar.
Dr Mahathir has said that it was only a matter of time before Anwar gets his long-awaited dream – to lead Malaysia into a new era.
And if the long-suffering Anwar continues with the patience and stamina he has been endowed with, he has everything to gain because the world will be at his feet!
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
