Dr M on Tunisia, Egypt: "Power corrupts" but ignores parallels at home

Amid warnings that the Umno-BN government in Malaysia will sooner or later suffer the same fates as the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, former premier Mahathir Mohamad has come out to knock down the political opposition, insisting that change for the sake or change was pointless.

He also aimed some body blows at the Islamist PAS, whom he implied was using the religion in a negative way that would make Malaysia backwards and poor.

Although, he did not mention names, it was clear who he was referring to. The Umno elite, such as himself and Prime Minister Najib Razak, has often been accused of selling out Islamic principles for the sake of business gains, such as in the awarding of gambling licenses that are prohibited by Islam to crony firms.

"There will be some Muslims who will say that being developed is not important to Islam. What is important is to be Islamic according to their interpretation of the teachings of Islam," Mahathir wrote in his www.chedet.cc.co blog.

"Does Islam teach us to be weak and poor, to be beggars incapable of defending ourselves? Certainly not. Therefore in striving to become a developed country we are not going against the teachings of Islam. Indeed what we will be doing is to restore the good image of Islam and to counter the propaganda that Islam is the cause of the poverty and incompetence of Muslims. To defend Islam and the Muslims, to regain respect for the religion cannot be against the teachings of Islam."

Power corrupts as we all know

The 85-year old Mahathir, who ruled Malaysia with a fist of iron for 22 years, also warned that "power corrupts as we all know". He pointed to the people uprising in the Middle East and North America as "some kind of revolution".

While agreeing the people there were unhappy with their leaders, massive unemployment and rampant corruption, Mahathir never once acknowledged the same bad practices and economic malaise that was entrenched in the Malaysian system and against which the opposition led by Anwar Ibrahim is fighting against..

He also shut an eye to his own authoritarian policies that were now being perpetuated by the Najib administration. In the coming weeks, Najib is due to step up sedition laws to further gag freedom of expression, the press, Internet and TV stations in a bid to control information flow ahead of the next general elections.

"It looks like the Arab countries are experiencing some kind of revolution. Apparently the people are not happy with the leadership of their largely authoritarian Governments. Equally obviously they want a change of Governments or the leaders. The revolution has succeeded in Tunisia. Now we are seeing upheavals in Egypt," Mahathir said.

"Corruption in the administration must be reduced. Drastic measures will be needed. For this the most important thing is for the new ruling elites, particularly the leader, however chosen to demonstrate that they are not corrupt. The skills in administration must be upgraded so that Government would be able to deliver on promises of better governance. I feel sad that not a single Muslim country is classified as developed. Almost invariably it is due to Government incompetence. We see some hope in the progress made by Turkey. But even Turkey is far from being a developed country."

Advising without acknowledging the parallels at home

Mahathir himself had set 2020 as the target year by which Malaysia should gain recognition as a developed nation by achieving the minimum per capita income qualifier.

Yet, Najib's own administration has warned that Malaysia risked missing this target and could even end up bankrupt like Greece and Doha due to massive government debt undertaken for superfluous mega-projects that yielded insufficiently to cover their costs of investment.

Instead, Mahathir chose to make "democracy" his target, saying that system could be abused and the new leaders could be even worse than their predecessors.

He even urged voters not to allow themselves to be "manipulated". But again, he omitted all references to the widespread accusations of polls-cheating and abuse of power by the BN that has kept the opposition down for decades.

"Perhaps in order to avoid a new dictatorship from emerging, democracy would be chosen. A democratic leader can be changed merely through voting. But the system can be abused. Either the elected leader would fix elections to perpetuate his office or there would be a series of ineffective Governments as the people reject each one with their votes. This will cause instability. The country would be no better," he said.

"To avoid this the electorate must not allow themselves to be manipulated. They must exercise their voting rights judiciously. But this would be something new to them and they may not be skilled enough in exercising their power to choose." - Malaysia Chronicle