MAHATHIR UPSET WITH PUTRAJAYA: ‘I TOLD THEM IF YOU DO THAT, THE WHOLE TOWN GOES DEAD & IT BECOMES DANGEROUS’

PUTRAJAYA: The sight of tall buildings cluttering the administrative capital’s skyline was not what Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had in mind when he first embarked on the Putrajaya project in the late 1980s.

In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the prime minister said the high-rise buildings which could be seen from his office windows had “spoiled everything.”

Dr Mahathir also said he would rather have Putrajaya residents be able to stroll around its broad avenues in the evenings instead of driving.

He told the WSJ that he wanted to build a boulevard similar to the Champs-Élysées in Paris, with side roads and plenty of shops.

“People would go to and fro walking, having coffee in cafes and all that. But civil servants, they want to be exclusive. They didn’t want anyone there.

” I told them if you do that then the whole town goes dead and it becomes dangerous,” Dr Mahathir was quoted as saying.

The prime minister said he had supported plans to open a Hard Rock Café franchise here a few years ago, as long as it didn’t offer any entertainment, which he described as “obscene.”

The WSJ also highlighted how a number of Dr Mahathir’s ideas were scrapped by his successor Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, citing the monorail system project aimed to provide transport in the administrative capital.

Instead, the decision to axe the project resulted in unfinished tunnels and an unconnected bridge across a man-made lake, which Dr Mahathir described as “the world’s only suspended suspension bridge.”

In the same report, the WSJ had described Putrajaya as a “cultural backwater”, quoting several tourists who were baffled by the lack of eateries in the capital.

With the return of Dr Mahathir as the prime minister for the second time after the 14th general election, the WSJ said things were expected to improve especially in Putrajaya.

“With Mr Mahathir back at the helm, Putrajaya might finally become the city he planned.

“People who know Mr. Mahathir say he regards the city as his true legacy, a counterpoint to Brasília or Canberra and a way to demonstrate Malaysia’s rising economic power and reflect its role as one of the Islamic world’s most dynamic nations.

“It hasn’t quite turned out the way he hoped—at least not yet,” the report noted.

NST