Dr M brushes off Kuan Yew comments but goes on RED ALERT over Pak Lah's

Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad showed remarkable restraint when asked to respond to recent comments made by Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew that Malaysia was under-performing as a nation and an economy due to policies that favored the Malays at the expense of the other races in the country.

"I excuse him. He's 90 years old so we give him allowance for age. Like how I expect people to give me allowance also. I'm also old. I'm 88 years old," Mahathir told reporters after attending a Hari Raya open house at Putrajaya.

"He's entitled to his own opinion. We live in a free world where there is free speech, especially in Singapore."

Mahathir's softly-softly rebuttal to Kuan Yew's new book 'One Man's View Of The World' is not unexpected given the two men are old foes, with their quarrels dating back to the 1960s when Singapore was still a part of Malaysia.

Kuan Yew has never hidden the fact that he considers Mahathir's Umno party an organization that made policies based on race rather meritocratic considerations. In particular, Kuan Yew considers Mahathir as being one of the prime people to blame for this.

"The Chinese made up 35.6 percent of the population in 1970. They were down to 24.6 percent at the last census in 2010. Over that same period, the Indian numbers fell from 10.8 percent to 7.3 percent," wrote Kuan Yew.

He was referring to Malaysia's controversial New Economic Policy which he claimed was responsible for the dramatic fall in the proportion of Chinese and Indians in the Malaysian population.

Dr M goes into red-alert?

However, it is very telling that while Mahathir was willing to make a quick response to Kuan Yew's comments, he was 'out-of-character' reticent about the even more scathing comments made by Abdullah Badawi, his former deputy who succeeded him as prime minister in 2003.

But then, as many seasoned observers have said, Badawi's comments are "politically loaded" and aimed to trigger a pattern or response in the run-up to the Oct 5 Umno party election.

Hence Mahathir's going-into red-alert and watching developments before tailoring his responses, they said.

"I have not read the book yet. I will make references to it as we go along," was all that Mahathir would say about Badawi's book 'Awakening: The Abdullah Badawi Years in Malaysia''.

Dr M would have bankrupted Malaysia

In the book, Badawi revealed how Mahathir had tried to push through some of his mega-projects even though he was no longer in the government.

The 74-year-old Badawi also blamed the ultras or hardliners in Umno for preventing him from carrying out reforms for the country. Mahathir is considered as the leader of this faction in Umno.

“Can you imagine, if I had succumbed to Mahathir’s continued pressure to spend when the deficit was already so high, how could Malaysia have weathered the oil and financial crisis which subsequently came in 2008?" said Badawi in the book.

“The deficit which we brought down to 3.2 percent crept up again due to subsidies for oil and essentials and hovered again at the 5 percent level. If we had not been prudent then, continued to spend, I can tell you we would be bankrupt by now."

Najib also another of Dr M's 'victims'

Badawi also sympathized with Prime Minister Najib Razak, saying the latter was also facing the same problems that he had during his term in office from 2003 to 2009.

"Najib is trying to do many good things. But he faces the same problem I did – resistance. Unfortunately, there are still people in Umno and Barisan Nasional who refuse to accept we did badly in 2008 because we did not meet the people's expectations in carrying out reforms.

“They think that we did not do well because we allowed too much discourse and openness to the people and the opposition. And it is these people who are set in doing things the old way. This, I believe, is Najib's biggest challenge."

"I underestimated the resistance to the changes and reforms that I wanted to implement. Perhaps, on hindsight, I would be more forceful in making those changes and less accommodating of those who resisted these changes. But that's water under the bridge now,"

Malaysia Chronicle