Malaysian PM Mahathir does it his own way

By Simon Martin

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad can sometimes be persuaded to sing in public his favorite song I Did It My Way, according to the authors of a study of Asia's longest-serving elected leader.

"In view of his defensiveness about some miscalculations, he should follow it with an encore ... Je Ne Regrette Rien," they write.

The comments in Malaysian Politics under Mahathir by R.S. Milne and Diane Mauzy highlight one characteristic adduced by analysts and opponents -- Mahathir never believes he is wrong.

According to parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang, the premier is convinced "he alone is right and the whole world is wrong."

Supporters say Mahathir is in fact willing to listen to counter-arguments. But he shows no self-doubt in his longstanding role as a champion of the developing world and frequent strong critic of the West.

Mahathir, at age 73 and after 18 years in power, faces probably his last election on Nov. 29. He is determined to secure another resounding triumph for his coalition, which has ruled Malaysia in one form or another since 1957.

Born to a schoolteacher father who had emigrated from India and a Malay mother, Mahathir trained as a doctor at a Singapore university.

He entered politics in 1964 as a member of parliament for the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) but was expelled from the party in 1969 after losing his seat in elections and following a critical letter to then-premier Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The letter accused the Tunku of failing to stand up for the ethnic Malay community. Mahathir continued the attack in The Malay Dilemma published in 1970, which addresses reasons for the Malays' economic backwardness compared to the ethnic Chinese.

He rejoined the party when a new premier took over. But Lim thinks Mahathir's time in the political wilderness was his defining political experience.

"He came back into UMNO and went up to the very top, convincing him that he alone is right and the whole world was wrong."

"I think that colored his entire political thinking and outlook," said Lim, describing the premier as a man of "very strong views and a mind of his own and prepared to take on the world."

Others think his background and upbringing during the British colonial era and the wartime Japanese occupation shaped his personality.

Khoo Book Teik, a visiting fellow at Murdoch University in Australia, suggests three factors which shaped a "very complex personality."

Mahathir is a Malay, an ethnic community which lagged behind other communities for a very long time; he is a Muslim in a world dominated by non-Muslim powers; and he is from Asia, which until the 1997 economic crisis seemed to be set to compete with the West.

Khoo said Mahathir's membership of these "losing groups" may have sparked a sense of inferiority but also spurred him to excel and to catch up.

He said Mahathir's relatively modest home background, compared to his three aristocratic predecessors as premier, was also a factor.

Michael Leifer, director of the Asia research center at the London School of Economics, told AFP: "There is a sense in which he feels strongly the weight of the colonial legacy, a sense in which he feels he and Malaysia were not treated with due respect."

When colonial racial barriers were taken down, he said, "it was to the benefit of the (Malay) aristocracy, not to people of Mahathir's background.

"There is this chip on the shoulder. By way of compensation he is a real street fighter."

Mahathir is fiercely proud of Malaysia's dramatic economic progress. Some analysts say this sparked his decision to stay on to salvage his legacy after the economic crisis struck in 1997 -- despite an increasingly impatient heir apparent in Anwar Ibrahim, now sacked and jailed.

Friends and foes acknowledge his driving energy and diligence. Even Anwar's wife Wan Azizah, who heads the National Justice Party, has said he brought economic progress and a "touch of discipline."

But she says the achievements became more and more focused on building monuments to himself amid corruption and cronyism by associates.

One major achievement, according to Leifer, is the preservation of racial peace. "To his great credit he has been a great moderator in religious matters and has stood up to the more fundamentalist segment of UMNO."

Samy Vellu, president of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), says that under Mahathir, "the Malays, the Chinese and the Indians work together, live together and have built a strong united nation."

The final verdict is up to the voters. "This election will be a test of Mahathir's stewardship and leadership," said Leifer.