Saturday May 24, 2008
Param: Detain Dr M under Isa
(The Star) PETALING JAYA: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad should be detained under the Internal Security Act, former UN rapporteur Datuk Param Cumaraswamy said.He said Dr Mahathir’s public speech on May 17 in Johor Baru bordered on sedition. Dr Mahathir had allegedly used words with racial overtones in his speech.
Param said going by the reason for detaining 106 people during Operasi Lallang, when it was said they had indulged in “race-baiting” which threatened the majority of Malaysians, then surely the same criteria could now be applied to Dr Mahathir for apparently “resorting to racial tactics”.
He said while he was opposed to the use of the ISA, the principle of equality should require the Government to consider detaining Dr Mahathir before he did further damage.
“A dose of his own medicine which he administered to the 106 in 1987 should be in order to rehabilitate him in Kamunting,” he said.
Stepping Down Is Hard To Do24 MAy, 2008
Similarly, Dr Mahathir would have to be investigated by the Attorney General because of the V.K. Lingam judicial scandal. Anyway, the people have already formed their own opinions about Dr Mahathir.
By LIM MUN FAH/ Translated by SOONG PHUI JEE/ Sin Chew Daily
Stepping into and out of high office is a fact of life. There is some parallels between Malaysia and Taiwan in this respect.
How the country and Umno is going to view the contributions of Dr Mahathir is certainly open to speculation. He has been incessantly attacking incumbent Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. His attacks are powerful and dramatic. He is a Machiavellian, I'm afraid that not many people could guess his next step after his resignation.
Dr Mahathir still launches overwhelming challenges against his hand-picked successor even though he is already 83 years old. I am afraid that it would be hard to find other political leaders in the world who would act like him.
Undeniably, Dr Mahathir is a wise man. Otherwise, he would not be notable in the political arena and created a myth of glory as he returned to Umno after being expelled from the party.
| "There is no perfect regimes or leaders in the world." |
From Tunku Abdul Rahman to Tun Musa Hitam, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Anwar Ibrahim, Dr Mahathir has built an invisible legend about himself. Why is he still working so hard today?
People have all kinds of interpretations and speculations. Those who support him would praise his concern to the country and the people, without caring for his personal reputation and health. While those who oppose him would criticise him for ignoring the people's interests and caring only for his own fame and fortune.
No matter how he is being evaluated, it is undeniable that Dr Mahathir is one of the most influential politicians in the history of Malaysia.
Meanwhile, Ma Ying-jeou has officially become the President of Taiwan while Chen Shui-bian has stepped down recently.
Ma looked energetic and confident while Chen inadvertently showed his disappointment and reluctance to let go as he tried to put on an air of cheerfulness when leaving the presidential palace.
It requires strength to step up and wisdom to step down. A leader must look elegant while he takes up office and when he steps down, the sight of his back must look good as well. This is a rule for the political game. Chen had been in power for eight years, which has triggered a lot of disputes. The people have their own views on his performances regardless how the performances are recorded in the history. But right after he stepped down, he had to face charges brought against him.
Similarly, Dr Mahathir would have to be investigated by the Attorney General because of the V.K. Lingam judicial scandal. Anyway, the people have already formed their own opinions about Dr Mahathir.
Undoubtedly, Dr Mahathir is a strong leader. Because of his strength, he has resolved the confrontation problems of the Malayan Communist Party, weakened the power of the royal family, and successfully led the country's economic restructuring during his term of office. He did make some contributions in the Malay community's stability and progress. However, he is as well responsible for the unlimited expansion of racial politics in the country, corruption and power abuse.
We can only say that it is easy to take the office but it is hard to step down. There is no perfect regimes or leaders in the world.
Mahathir's style is in fact similar to another strong politician, Lee Teng-hui. They showed us that it is actually so difficult for a powerful politician to step down the gorgeous stage and leave the show!Can the Pied Piper call the tune?
24 May, 2008
Mahathir enticing party members with his tired call for race-based politics
By Leslie Lopez, The Straits Times
OVER the last four decades, former Malaysian strongman Mahathir Mohamad has dominated the country's political landscape, casting himself as the ultra-Malay champion, reformer, moderniser, autocrat and the Muslim world's chief spokesman.
Now, out of power and bitter over his country's politics, Tun Dr Mahathir is assuming the role of the Pied Piper.
He wants to lure the elected representatives out of the ruling Barisan National (BN) and the faithful out of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) in his latest gambit to oust Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.
But Dr Mahathir's tune is sounding both tired and tiresome.
As Malaysia attempts to forge a new political order after the March general election, which showed promise of a two-party multiracial political system, Dr Mahathir is determined to prove that race-based politics must continue to shape this country of 27 million people.
Before his surprise resignation early this week from Umno, the party he led for the 22 years that he was premier, Dr Mahathir had preached a simple message in his meetings with supporters across Malaysia: The country's politically dominant Malays faced the risk of losing power in their homeland.
He shared the stage with ultra-Malay personalities, who rued the day non-Malays were granted citizenship in Malaysia, and warned his community that they risked being colonised by the country's Chinese and Indian minorities, and neighbouring Singapore.
Critics say the 82-year-old Dr Mahathir is simply displaying his 'ultra' leanings, which gained him both notoriety and support when he first made his mark in politics in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Others say that his actions are designed to deflect the debate away from the recent report by a Royal Commission, which concluded that Dr Mahathir had played a major role, together with a senior lawyer and a prominent businessman close to him, to undermine the selection of top judges while he was premier.
The report, which stands as one of the most serious indictments against his legacy, also called on the government to open fresh investigations into allegations of corruption among judges.
Close business associates of the former strongman disagree. They insist that Dr Mahathir's actions reflect his brand of politics; the end justifies the means, what ever they may be.
His declared objective for the past three years has been the ouster of Datuk Seri Abdullah, his anointed successor who, he now says, is incapable of leading Malaysia.
The original timetable was to build an anti-Abdullah groundswell leading up to Umno's own party elections in December in a bid to remove the Premier as party president.
But the outcome of the general election has upset Dr Mahathir's plans. The emergence of his chief political nemesis, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, as a serious contender for the premiership has forced the former premier to advance his timetable for attack.
Dr Mahathir has said he believes Datuk Seri Anwar could pull off a political coup in Parliament by forming a government before mid-September through defections of elected BN representatives.
'It can really happen. I first wanted to dismiss this possibility, but on studying the situation I feel that there is great danger,' he said earlier this month.
By resigning, political analysts believe Malaysia's grand old man of politics is hoping to distil the national political debate into a purely Malay issue, ahead of the Umno branch and division meetings across the country set to start in July and end in November.
Umno's 3.2 million members are spread across more than 180,000 branches, which are in turn controlled by 191 divisions.
Dr Mahathir is hoping that widespread dissatisfaction will either lead to mass resignations from the party or trigger calls for Mr Abdullah to resign as party president and Premier, they say.
But the Premier said yesterday he does not expect any Member of Parliament to quit, although some members may leave.
'Perhaps there may be followers. I do not see the followers from among the Members of Parliament,' he told reporters in Tokyo where he was attending a conference.
For the moment, Umno's top leaders are standing by him. 'We are sticking to the party to ensure it remains strong,' Cabinet minister Syed Hamid Albar said on Wednesday.
But the sentiment among Umno's rank and file is less clear. That is why Dr Mahathir cannot be written off so quickly.
Few analysts, if any, will disagree that there is widespread disenchantment in Umno towards Mr Abdullah. His premiership over the last four years has been long on promise and short on delivery.
Close associates of Dr Mahathir say that the former premier's offensive is expected to focus on the alleged influence of Mr Abdullah's family in the running of the government.
In particular, Dr Mahathir will train his guns on Mr Kamaluddin Abdullah, the Premier's only son, and his son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin, who is also Umno's deputy Youth chief.
In patronage-driven Umno, Mr Kamaluddin and Mr Khairy evoke strong feelings - largely anger - even among party members because of their alleged involvement in the awarding of government contracts.
Failure to tackle this growing perception of nepotism in the Abdullah administration would only serve Dr Mahathir's cause.
Dr Mahathir also has a lot to lose. His attacks could prompt the administration to respond by dredging up the controversies and scandals of the Mahathir era, resulting in the ugly public airing of the BN government's litany of misdeeds.
The only beneficiary from such a situation would be Mr Anwar and his opposition coalition.
These are early days and Dr Mahathir could well succeed in his bid to remove Mr Abdullah.
But success could come with an ironic twist, says a senior Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer who has tracked Dr Mahathir for the past two decades.
'In his campaign to push out Mr Abdullah who he so dislikes, Dr Mahathir could help bring to power the man he hates even more - Anwar.'
By resigning, political analysts believe Malaysia's grand old man of politics is hoping to distil the national political debate into a purely Malay issue...Dr Mahathir is hoping that widespread dissatisfaction will either lead to mass resignations from the party or trigger calls for Mr Abdullah to resign as party president and Premier, they say.
1 comment:
Who is Mahathir? He is an unknown now. Just ignore him or to put it crudely, don't f..k him. Better still, just think of him as a dead person who was buried long ago. He is a racist if you judge from the rhetorics but most of his side kicks are non-Malays.
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