Mahathir: National Hero, Gobal Bad Boy

David Camroux*


With the retirement of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed not only has
Malaysia lost the leader who perhaps more than any Malaysian Prime Minister - including
the ‘father of the Nation » Tunku Abdul Rahman - Southeast Asia sees the departure of the
last of its ‘heavyweight’ leaders marked by the period of independence. A page has been
turned, even if, as I will suggest a certain continuity can be expected in the policies pursued
by his successor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Any judgement on the twenty-two years of Mahathir’s prime ministership must be
nuanced. While plans for teaching courses in « Mahathirism » in schools and universities
seem to have been shelved, Mahathir in the last year of his prime ministership has been the
object of numerous studies ranged from the hagiographies to serious critical analysis. (1).
During the course of his twenty years in office Malaysia has undergone and extraordinary
economic and, to some extent, social transformation. According to World Bank statistics in
PPP terms GNP per capita was $2,320 in 1981, but had almost quadrupled to $8,920 in
2002. During most of the `80s till the economic crisis of 1997-8, Malaysia experienced
double digit growth rates. Malaysia’s rebound from the economic crisis, which saw negative
growth of - 7.5% in 1998, was rapid with 6% growth in 1999 and UNCTAD forecasts for just
over 4% in 2003.
These growth figures indicate the transformation of Malaysia from an exporter of
natural commodities to a manufacturing hub. With this growth has occurred a rapid
urbanisation of Malaysia and a concomitant increase in the middle class, especially the
Malay middle class. Two questions, however, come to mind. On the one hand, to what
extent were Mahathir and the policies pursued by him responsible for this growth and on the
other, how did Mahathir and the policies he introduced impinge on the social and political
side effects of this growth. To deal with the first question it could be argued that many
factors were already in place prior to Mahathir’s appointment as Prime Minister. The solid
rural base of the Malaysian economy and the country’s rich endowment in energy sources
provided the launch pad for industrial development. The export of palm oil and the largesse
of the national petroleum company, Petronas, were vital in the economic turnaround after
the 1997-8 crisis. Furthermore the peculiar Malaysian blend of economic nationalism with
affirmative action objectives in favour of the Malays was introduced in the New Economic
Policy in 1971. Mahathir also continued a form of multiracial governance through the Barisan
National which has its origins in the « bargain » installed at the independence in 1957 of the
Federation of Malaya.
The regional context should also not be minimised in analysing the economic
transformation in Malaysia. Prior to Mahathir, but most particularly under his prime
2
ministership, Malaysia adopted its variant of the Asian Developmental State model. In the
Malaysian context the second essential element of the model, after that of export-orientation,
namely State interventionism, was given by far the greatest prominence amongst all the
countries of Southeast Asia and, with the benefit of hindsight, with quite positive
consequences. Prior to the economic crisis of 1997-98, Malaysia received in absolute terms
as much foreign direct investment (FDI) as Thailand and Indonesia, countries with a
population base of between three and ten times that of Malaysia. Why? Two major factors
explain the « attractiveness » of Malaysia for foreign investors. The first s the infrastructure
base in Malaysia itself. Under Mahathir very substantial investments were made in the
physical infrastructure - roads, railways, manufacturing zones, etc. - within Malaysia.
Malaysia, it should be noted, has the largest public sector element in its economy amongst
all the countries of Southeast Asia. The second element is the degree of political stability
that Malaysia offers. By one measure, that of transformation of one political leader to
another, Malaysia has the distinction of being basically the only country of postindependence
non-communist Southeast Asia where this has occurred peacefully. The
transfer of power from Mahathir to Badawi confirms this trend whose significance should not
be under-estimated. But political stability at what cost? A point to which I shall return later.
While I do not feel that Mahathir himself can be held responsible for the broad
changes in the economic and social situation in Malaysia, I do feel that he is responsible for
the internal forms manifested by these transformations. In particular the peculiar nature of
the Malay entrepreneurial class, dependent less on their business capacities than on their
political connections is a result of the croneyism that Mahathir, and Anwar, in a sense
despite their best intentions helped install. Mahathir also determined the parametres of the
most important spin-offs of the socio-economic transformation that Malaysia experienced,
the Islamic resurgence that now determines the political agenda within Malaysia. By astutely
bringing Anwar Ibrahim the former leader of the Muslim student movement, ABIM, into his
government, Mahathir had hoped to cut the ground from under the political opposition
represented by the PAS. Unfortunately he found himself involved in a spiral of raising the
Islamic stakes with the risk of alienating the non-Malay minority.
If one was to summarise Mahathir’s role in the last twenty years, I would argue that
he has been the filter / gate-keeper / interpreter of the pressures of globalization within the
Malaysian polity. In the last twenty years, partly due to a muzzled press at his service, the
only window on the world that Malaysians generally have known is « Dr M. », This is
explainable for very sound economic reasons. The peculiarity of Malaysian economic and
political practice is twofold. On the one hand the combination of the most nationalistic
economic policy in Southeast Asia (and the concomitant largest public sector in ASEAN)
with such an opening to the outside world that placed Malaysia during the `80s and most of
the ‘90s « at the top of the hit parade » for foreign investors.
3
The economic crisis of 1997-8 revealed the disparity between the political discourse
for an overseas audience and that destined for local consumption. Anwar Ibrahim,
Mahathir’s deputy, was sacrificed largely because he was seen as the prodigal son who had
betrayed his father, but also because he was seen as the custodian of the economic
orthodoxy of the IMF / World Bank and, therefore, opposed to Malay interests. Mahathir was
to be vindicated. The remedies that he proposed - pegging the ringitt, freezing investment
within the country, etc. are now considered by the Bretton Woods’ institutions as
appropriate, if temporary, responses to the type of economic crisis that Malaysia confronted.
Nevertheless, Bin Laden saved him... indirectly. The despicable attack of 11th September,
perpetuated in the United States, but directed principally at a number of Middle Eastern
regimes had, as one of its spin offs to redefine the agenda of international relations. The
geo-economic considerations that characterized the decade after the end of the Cold War,
gave way to more classic geopolitical concerns within the framework of the war against
terrorism. In this context, erronously expressed, in my view, in terms of relations between
nations, Mahathir’s Malaysia found a new legitimacy and, Mahathir himself, a new
respectability. To put it as a caricature if Malaysia as a moderate, economically successful
Muslim state did not exist... it would have to be invented. What other nation, with the very
partial exception of Tunisia, has shown that Islam, economic development and are not
incompatible?

1. In the latter category alone four studies have been published in the last months:

Ho Khai Leong & James Chin (eds), Mahathir’s Administration: Performance and Crisis in
Governance (2nd edn), Singapore, Times Editions, 2003.
In-Won Hwang, Personalized Politics: the Malaysian State under Mahathir, Singapore,
Institute of Southeast Asian Politics, 2003.
Kwoo Boo Teik, Beyond Mahathir: Malaysian Politics and its Discontents, London, Zed
Books, 2003.
Ian Stewart, The Mahathir Legacy: A Nation Divided, A Region at Risk, Sydney, Allen &
Unwin, 2003.
* Director of the Asia-Europe Centre at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris, and Senior
Research Associate in the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales.