‘Architect of Malaysia’ returns to fight election at 92
Former leader claims comeback is to challenge his one-time protégé who is ‘destroying the country’
AT 92, and after surviving two coronary bypass surgeries, most people would relax and enjoy life.
But Mahathir Mohamad, a defiant political strongman known as the architect of modern Malaysia, has risen from retirement to challenge Najib Razak, his former protégé and the current prime minister, who he believes is running south-east Asia’s fourth largest economy into the ground.
A sprightly Dr Mahathir, who courted several controversies of his own during his 22-year tenure as prime minister from 1981 to 2003, told The Daily Telegraph that he could not sit idle ahead of next Wednesday’s poll with the country he helped to modernise now immersed in huge corruption scandals.
“I have been asked [to run] by a lot of people since I stepped down because they were dissatisfied with the government,” he said. “What [Najib] is doing now is actually to destroy the country because he believes that cash is king.”
Not only does the country face crippling debt, he claims, but the prime minister himself has been tainted by a multibillion dollar corruption scandal that had engulfed 1MDB, a state investment fund that he set up.
The US justice department alleges that billions went missing from 1MDB and were laundered through bank accounts in the US and other countries to finance films and extravagant goods including a luxury yacht and jewellery.
Justice department civil case filings also allege that about $700 million (£515million) had flowed into the bank account of “Malaysian Official 1”. It didn’t name the official, but corroborating details say it was Mr Najib.
A spokesman for Mr Najib’s ruling Barisan Nasional coalition countered that there was no suggestion that the investigation was examining the prime minister, who was “not a target of the US department of justice civil suits.”
He said $681 million (£500 million) had been deposited in a party operations account held in Mr Najib’s name, and the Saudi foreign minister had confirmed it was a donation to the country, much of which had been returned.
But for Dr Mahathir, the controversy has blackened Malaysia’s international reputation. Although a win would make him the world’s oldest head of state, he believes it is his job to save the country. In his office in Putrajaya, he insisted that his “biggest regret” in a political career spanning 70 years was to back Mr Najib.
His unlikely political comeback has galvanised a fractured four-party coalition that includes former political enemies who once accused him of authoritarianism and regarded him as their arch-rival.
“All the opposition parties are agreed, and I agree that we should get rid of this prime minister,” he said. “If I had been such a bad person, would they accept me?”
In another unexpected twist, he has also rekindled ties with Anwar Ibrahim, his former deputy, who he dismissed two decades ago and who was jailed for graft and sodomy in a case Mr Anwar said was politically motivated and the US described as a “show trial.”
Mr Anwar was imprisoned again in 2015 for a second sodomy conviction that the opposition say was fabricated to crush its progress. He is due to be released in June.
In a political U-turn that would once have seemed inconceivable, Dr Mahathir now plans to cede the top job to him as soon as possible. “I regret that he was jailed but that is not something that I did. It was the court,” he said. “He seems to be a very charismatic leader.”
Although united, Dr Mahathir’s opposition force faces an uphill struggle to break the ruling coalition’s 60-year grip on power.
“Since [Mr Najib] took office, Malaysia’s gross national income has increased by more than 50 per cent, 2.7million jobs have been created, unemployment and inflation have been kept low and poverty reduced significantly,” said a Barisan Nasional spokesman.
“The alternative choice is the opposition coalition, whose prime minister candidate is self-confessed dictator Dr Mahathir Mohamad. He is a man obsessed by control, who thinks after 22 years in power that Malaysia can only be run by him.”
It is a charge that Dr Mahathir simply shrugs off.
“In the history of mankind, which dictator has resigned? I resigned voluntarily, nobody pushed me,” he said. “Would the opposition appoint me as their leader if I was a dictator?”