OUT-OF-SYNC Dr M should stop playing power broker and AGE GRACEFULLY

While some people in the country might like to welcome back the 86-year-old Mahathir Mohamad to helm the nation, it is timely to remind the aging politician that no one is indispensable in life.

Quite unlikely as it seems that Dr M would make a comeback as prime minister, there are certain quarters with vested interests in him who hope the seemingly maverick politician can pull the nation out of its present troubled waters.

Unbecoming of a politician

But Dr M’s behavior has always been unusually unbecoming of a politician, prompting Paul Keating, the former premier of Australia, to once describe him as “recalcitrant” for boycotting the inaugural Asia-Pacific Economic Summit in Seattle, US way back as in early 1996.

The description has since stuck and been cast into iron by other world leaders who saw Dr M as a stumbling block to real world peace and prosperity owing to his archaic and obsolete views and a strong hatred and dislike for the Atlantic powers of North America and Western Europe.

Dr M’s long-held belief by himself since young is that he is never wrong and always right. This is why during his 22-year-old governing of Malaysia he had disputes and couldn’t see eye-to-eye with all his deputies.

From Musa Hitam to Ghaffar Baba and Anwar Ibrahim and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the erstwhile UMNO party strongman was at loggerheads with all of them and silenced their dissenting, disagreeing voices by simply removing them from holding office as his deputy with the exception of Badawi who was ousted as PM after succeeding Dr M to the chair.

Dr M’s nature and behavior

This is not just the nature and behavior of Dr M, who sees himself as the center of the universe, egotistical and megalomaniacal in many ways by wanting Malaysia to have the longest this, the tallest that and the biggest of whatever there could possibly be.

It was not about scaling new heights and achieving success that was remarkable but merely one-upmanship by Dr M to show the world that Malaysians simply stood head-and-shoulders above the rest of the world’s people.

While in a way all this was inspiring and motivating, in actuality and truth, Dr M’s tenure as PM was marked and characterized with bouts and periods of unreality and fantasy.

Whenever his deputies humbly begged to differ and try to bring him down to earth, Dr M will summarily dismiss them in keeping with his authoritarian style of leadership.

These are the terms used to often describe the man – recalcitrant, racist, chauvinistic yet at the same time professing to Malaysians and the rest of the world that he was the true champion of Malay and Islamic and possiblybumiputra rights.

True colors of Dr M

In the process of trying to lead the nation forward, his true colors surfaced to the fore, that he was in reality a self-seeking individual who flogged the backs of Malaysian workers to ensure they boosted productivity and filled the national coffers to which he and his cronies and sycophants helped themselves without any shame.

Using draconian laws to silence dissent and keep away any form or kind of resistance to his seat of power, Dr M ruled with impunity until the day he retired, but has since been seen tinkering with the offices of his successor Badawi and now with the distraught Najib.

Dr M’s ploy and plan is really very simple. He wishes for his legacy to stay intact, and for individuals and organizations he deems suitable and who curry favor with him, to pass on to them the baton of power, as the former premier still holds sway within UMNO and wields a considerable amount of influence in the country based on his past services in the political arena.

While Dr M’s true and real self is becoming more apparent to more and more Malaysians, Najib Tun Razak in his present position of being besieged by a host of worries and problems looks like a likely candidate for Dr M to meddle into his premiership and to set things right the Dr M way.

Malaysians have already reached the hilt, by being pushed by Dr M to build the economy during his tenure of service as the prime minister, and wish no further for the sly and cunning Dr M to resurface and try to guide Malaysia through the turbulent stormy weather the nation is presently facing.

Most Malaysians have had enough of Dr M and have already expressed relief at his departure and hopes for him to age gracefully and not to think of any dangerous ideas of trying to manipulate and maneuver with the administration of the country as it is already in a chaotic mess.

Dr M’s present game plan

Dr M’s old age and wishful thinking is for him to save BN-UMNO and try and regain the stranglehold of the party and the national coalition on the nation. He thinks himself right now to be in the best position to be the deciding power broker and hopes to regain the glory years of BN once again.

This is why the thinking and feeling of Dr M is that he is indispensable to Malaysians and that only he knows what is right and proper and good for this country and can prescribe the appropriate medicines and tonic to cure the nation of all its ailments.

But Malaysians don’t need a biased, prejudiced and racist doctor to tinker with the reins of power as they already know and are greatly aware that the BN hold on power should rightfully come to an end as it has run its course and its limits has expired in a natural manner.

This natural, gradual and graceful manner in which the BN’s reign of power is seemingly coming to an end should be well studied by the doctor who himself is on his last rounds of life and learn to withdraw from public life by emulating the way in which Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew has faded away into oblivion.

Instead of trying to mount a bid on assuming power and authority in this country, Dr M would be well advised to really let his past shadows fall away similarly and leave the running of the nation, for better or for worse, in the hands of the present crop of leaders as his time should be firmly over by now and not to subscribe to any fallacy that he is indispensable to this nation.

Malaysia Chronicle