Mahathir: Not in Soeharto's shoes

Mahathir: Not in Soeharto's shoes

By Brian Williams

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): "Reformasi" rang out on the streets of
Indonesia four months ago and a long-ruling president cracked
down and then came tumbling down.

The same word rang out on the streets of Malaysia this week
and another veteran ruler cracked down. The world is waiting to
see if Mahathir Mohamad also comes tumbling down.

The judgment so far appears to be that the Malaysian prime
minister has not yet reached the "terminal" stage that brought
down former Indonesian president Soeharto.

On the surface, parallels between the fall of Soeharto and the
challenge to Mahathir make for easy comparisons.

Aging leaders long in control of their country, out of touch
with demands for "Reformasi", or reform, among the young, and
rapidly growing economies that have run out of steam.

Mahathir even invited the comparison on Tuesday when he told
his first news conference on recent protests that their leader,
sacked finance minister Anwar Ibrahim, was trying to set off an
Indonesian-style uprising.

But listen to ex-Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, the
doyen of Southeast Asia's trio of leaders who presided over the
region's fabulous economic growth.

"Malaysia, despite the bad press it is getting, has an economy
that is sound in its basics and there is no danger of civil
disorder," Lee said in a speech on Sunday, the day protests
against Mahathir reached their height in Kuala Lumpur.

A key statistic backs up Lee's assessment that no matter how
bad Malaysia's economic plight and dissatisfaction with Mahathir,
its 22 million people are in far better shape than Indonesia's
200 million people were when a popular uprising ousted Soeharto.

The Asian Development Bank's latest assessment of the two
nations' per-capita gross national product showed the Malaysian
figure was $4,370, more than four times Indonesia's $1,080.
Terumasa Nakanishi, professor of international politics at
Japan's Kyoto University, believes Mahathir has a 50-50 chance of
staying in power.

"The steps Mahathir takes in the next few months will decide
if he keeps his job," Nakanishi told Reuters.

"With the Malaysian economy likely to turn for the worse,
Mahathir is expected to face a life-or-death situation towards
the end of this year and earlier next year -- the time of
Ramadhan," he said, referring to the Moslem fasting month.

"Companies may not be able to pay usual Ramadhan bonuses to
their employees which could spark civil unrest," he said.

Australian academic Harold Crouch says the Malaysian protests
have not approached the critical mass of riots that rocked
Indonesia.

He said the Malaysian situation so far had lacked the ethnic
tension present in Indonesia where Chinese businesses were
targeted for attack.

"It's hardly rioting. The element of ethnic tension is just
not present," said Crouch, a senior member of the Australian
National University's School of Pacific and Asian Studies in
Canberra.

Crouch also said many more people shared in the spoils of
government in Malaysia than in Indonesia where much wealth flowed
to Soeharto's family.

"Soeharto's patronage was a kind of inverted pyramid if you
like," said Crouch.

Takeshi Nobehara, chief Asia expert at the Japan Research
Institute in Tokyo, said Mahathir's future would, like
Soeharto's, be decided by his handling of the ailing economy.

"Malaysia is becoming the eye of a typhoon in Asia," Nobehara
said.

"Mahathir is involved in a very dangerous gamble. If his
economic policies, including tightened control on foreign
exchange, fail, he will have to step down."