Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times Read online

  Of all the slogans associated with Dr. Mahathir's rule, the most resonant was not created by, or for, him. As far as anyone knows, Malaysia boleh was the tagline used in a marketing campaign for a health beverage in the 1980s. It translates as "Malaysia can", or more grammatically, "Malaysia can do it", and with Dr. Mahathir at the helm it became the battle cry of the nation. It echoed from the stadium as Malaysian sportsmen upheld national honour on the field, and it rang out in response to any news that could be construed as a Malaysian triumph.

  The sentiment embodied in Malaysia boleh fit Dr. Mahathir's can-do personality perfectly. He wanted his fellow Malaysians, especially the Malays, to be proud, capable and confident. While Dr. Mahathir pursued initiatives meant to eliminate vestiges of colonial thinking at home and show that Malaysia was taken seriously abroad, he built for the ages on a scale that impressed Malaysians and foreigners alike. The north-south highway stretched from the tip of southern Thailand to the outskirts of northern Singapore. Connecting Penang island to the mainland was the longest bridge in Asia. An international airport for the capital matched the region's biggest and best. A proposed dam in Sarawak state would flood an area roughly the size of Singapore. Kuala Lumpur, once a nondescript urban tangle, took shape as a modern metropolis distinguished by eye-catching architecture that included iconic twin towers, the world's tallest. Malaysia boleh!

  Driven by a nationalistic vision and paying due regard to aesthetics, Dr. Mahathir's building frenzy created a buzz among Malaysians. The doctor-politician diagnosed that they were suffering from a dire case of inferiority complex, and they responded with puffed chests to the treatment he prescribed and administered. As Dr. Mahathir explained, his monumental projects were "good for the ego" of a developing country. "To be noticed when you are small, sometimes you have to stand on a box," he said.[1] Ignoring critics, Dr. Mahathir kept on building in ever more spectacular style: a Formula One racing circuit, a government-guided version of California's Silicon Valley and a brand new administrative capital for the future Malaysia.

  After the Malaysian government made it into Guinness World Records with the world's highest flagpole, individual Malaysians went scrambling up Mount Everest, crossed the Antarctic and sailed the oceans in search of more records. If they did not qualify for the real thing, they found recognition in the Malaysia Book of Records, a home-grown version that let them create their own categories of accomplishments.

  Dr. Mahathir championed the record making and breaking, sometimes appearing at events to participate, or commend the performers, reinforcing the belief that they were doing their bit to turn Malaysia into a mighty country. He embraced corporate executives who delivered, such as Ting Pek Khiing, a brash entrepreneur from Sarawak who made his fortune in construction and timber. Ting left an enduring impression on Dr. Mahathir by hurriedly building resort facilities on the island of Langkawi in time for Malaysia's first international air show in 1991.[2] Dr. Mahathir later boasted that "we" designed, built and equipped a 170-room, five-star hotel on Langkawi in four months, while deciding half way through to make up for a projected shortfall in accommodation by adding a 300-room, three-star hotel; it was finished in 53 days. Both were records and deserved a place in Guinness, he declared.[3]

  At its best, the Malaysia boleh fervour engendered patriotism and encouraged Malays, Chinese, Indians and other minorities to forget their ethnic differences and take pride in being Malaysian. While it remained a noble cause for some, however, it degenerated into farce for others. As political opponents attacked Dr. Mahathir's "mega-projects" for their extravagance, his Malaysia set the unofficial world record for setting records, many of them banal, bizarre or plain wacky. They included the largest gathering of old people at a circus, the most number of heads shampooed in one day at a shopping mall and the highest backward climb up a staircase.

  In conjunction with a World Youth Games in Moscow organized by the International Olympic Committee in 1998, Malaysia dispatched a 16-member team to participate in a mass jump on the North Pole.[4] The think-big wrinkle: With the help of the Russian military, the Malaysians floated a Proton Wira down to the icy waste, prompting some of their countrymen to "mock the inanity" of seeking to have their national car become the first Asian auto to arrive in the Arctic by parachute.[5]

  Five Malaysian skydivers took aim at the South Pole in a trumpeted "Millennium Jump" at the turn of the century, only to miss their target by a thousand kilometres or so. They landed at Patriot Hills in the Chilean-claimed western Antarctic, disappointing Malaysia's youth and sports ministry, which had advanced the organizers RM780,000 to help make the polar bid. Stoicly, Ong Tee Kiat, a deputy minister, pointed out that a jump had occurred and the team "should be praised for accomplishing the feat under difficult circumstances".[6]

  Detractors derided "Bolehland" and a local satirical troupe, Instant Café Theatre, staged a spoof "Bolehwood" awards ceremony.[7] In another production, Instant Café offered a politician vying for the post of "deputy minister of misinformation" declaiming, "Yes, we know that we do not have a very good human rights record. That is why we are trying to have all the other records...".[8]

  Even when he stuck to basic infrastructure, Dr. Mahathir courted controversy with the sheer dimensions and sweep of his plans. "I think very far ahead, not ten years, twenty years, [but] one hundred years", he said.[9] The 966-kilometre north-south highway system, which took 13 years to complete, cut travel time from one end of peninsular Malaysia to the other by two-thirds. Begun by the government, the project became contentious when a company controlled by Dr. Mahathir's UMNO was given a RM3.42 billion contract to complete the network, which was then privatized under a consortium led by the same company, with the right to operate it and collect tolls.

  If anyone had any doubts, the replacement Kuala Lumpur International Airport provided an insight into the extent of Dr. Mahathir's ambitions. While some argued that the existing Subang airport could be expanded, he chose a remote site 70 kilometres from the capital, on which Kisho Kurokawa, the noted Japanese architect, designed an airport to handle eventually up to 100 million passengers a year. An entire section of rain forest was transplanted from the jungle, roots and all, to decorate the satellite building at which aircraft docked. At 130 metres, the control tower was then the world's tallest. The RM9 billion airport signalled that Malaysia aspired to compete with Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong as a regional transportation and logistics hub.

  When it came to the Penang bridge, Dr. Mahathir solidified his reputation by making it a reality. Others had talked about it, studied the feasibility and promised to do something for a decade or more, especially at election time. Less than a week after becoming premier, Dr. Mahathir disclosed that a "non-Caucasian" company — South Korean, it transpired — had been chosen to do the bulk of the work.[10] Costing RM740 million, the toll bridge was the final link in an east-west highway network, and at 13.5 kilometres — 8.4 kilometres of it over water — it was the third-longest bridge in the world.[11] Driving a Proton Saga, the new national car, over the Penang bridge to celebrate its completion in 1985, Dr. Mahathir "brought together two potent symbols of modernity, Malaysian-style".[12]

  With an audacious initiative to include Malaysia in Formula One, the world's most expensive sport, Dr. Mahathir successfully grabbed international attention. His government sponsored the construction of a RM270 million racetrack, which was sited at Sepang near the new airport. Dr. Mahathir envisioned a glamorous grand prix, with a worldwide television audience of tens of millions and a loyal following among travelling spectators, as a magnetic tourist attraction. In addition, he saw it as a platform for the promotion of Malaysia's event-management industry and a showcase for the Proton.[13]

  A car-racing fan, Dr. Mahathir flew to Europe to lobby Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Administration personally to ensure that the prestigious race was held in Malaysia by 1999. Ecclestone said Dr. Mahathir's enthusiasm "more than convinced" the organizers.[14] The Petronas Malaysian Gra
nd Prix took its place in the Formula One series, along with traditional venues in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the United States and Monaco.

  Just how far Dr. Mahathir was ahead of the game became clear much later. Only Australia and Japan in the Asian region were on the limited-race circuit when he seized the opportunity. China subsequently signed up Shanghai, Singapore secured the first night race in 2008 and India reached agreement to join in 2010, leaving Russia and others clamouring to get in. With aspirations to be a global city in the twenty-first century, Singapore regretted that it did not seek admission to the exclusive Formula One club much earlier. The republic's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, publicly chastised himself for having rejected the idea in the 1990s, which he called a "stupid decision".[15]

  The massive Bakun dam that Dr. Mahathir approved in Sarawak in 1993, after 14 years of studies and delays, incorporated nearly everything about his leadership that supporters admired and detractors despised. To generate 2,400 megawatts of electricity, it was planned to block the upper reaches of the Rejang River deep in Sarawak's interior to create a giant island-studded lake. About 80,000 hectares of tropical forest were to be cleared and 10,000 rural dwellers relocated. At least two 670-kilometre submarine transmission lines, the world's longest, would carry power across the South China Sea to the national grid in peninsular Malaysia.

  To tame the Borneo jungle, Dr. Mahathir turned to Ting Pek Khiing, the tycoon who enjoyed close and cordial relations with the premier after establishing his credentials on Langkawi. Ting's flagship company, Ekran Bhd., assumed the lead role in the RM15 billion privatized venture, which was the biggest Malaysia had attempted, the costliest infrastructure undertaking in Southeast Asia and one of the world's largest engineering works. Dr. Mahathir gave the nod to Ekran in early 1994 after Ting and Sarawak's powerful chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, privately negotiated a deal in just a few weeks.[16] There was no competitive bidding. Ekran, which lacked relevant experience, apparently did not even submit a proper proposal to the state government before it got the contract, and Ting produced his environmental impact study almost six months after the award.[17] "It's a project whose time has come," declared Dr. Mahathir.[18]

  Alas, not only the timing was off. While Ting bragged about enhancing his reputation for fast work — "maybe we can do this in six or seven years", instead of the ten-year timetable suggested in studies — he encountered obstacles at every stage.[19] Ekran was dogged by green groups, opposition political parties, the financial community and Sarawak residents due to be displaced. They argued that the rock-filled dam, the world's highest, would be environmentally risky and commercially questionable. Ting multiplied the stakes by talking of plans to build a 14,000-hectare industrial park, Asia's largest, in Sarawak at an estimated cost of RM20 billion, to house makers of equipment for the hydroelectric project.

  Although the Ekran-led main operating company projected income of RM38.6 billion from its 30-year concession, including a profit of RM1.47 billion in the first full year of power production, the market remained skeptical.[20] After announcing he had secured a crucial agreement to sell 70 per cent of the output to Tenaga Nasional Bhd., the national power company, Ting had to endure the embarrassment of further negotiations that reduced the price.[21] Ekran and its partners clashed. Swiss-Swedish engineering powerhouse Asea Brown Boveri Ltd., chosen by the Malaysian government to head the consortium to build the dam, objected to RM9 billion of contracts being given without tender to four companies controlled by Ting.[22] He sacked ABB. Two influential Malaysian minority shareholders in the operating company resisted Ekran's demand for management fees of more than RM1 billion as the main promoter of the project.[23] After almost three years of bickering, Ting suffered a stroke which, though mild, was extremely bad news for a man who ran his empire almost singlehandedly.

  As the Asian economic crisis struck Malaysia, the government in September 1997 decided to suspend work on several big-ticket items, Bakun among them. Because Ting wanted to proceed, the government cancelled Ekran's contract, agreed to pay compensation for preliminary work and took control of what was declared to be a "national" project. State funds were used to finish some of the work, including tunnels to divert the river.

  One gigantic project that escaped the freeze was the RM20.1 billion administrative capital known as Putrajaya, along with its associated Multimedia Super Corridor. Located 30 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur, about half way to the showpiece airport, Putrajaya was designed to be the nation's centre of government. Almost all the federal ministries, courts and agencies would migrate there — though not the Parliament — along with about 76,000 state employees and an anticipated population of 250,000. Reflecting his enthusiasm for Putrajaya, set on 4,581 hectares that once supported rubber and oil palm plantations, Dr. Mahathir made it a federal territory and home to the prime minister's office and official residence. He vowed to be the first to relocate.

  Named after Malaysia's first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Putrajaya appeared to have been put on the slow track when the government announced general spending cuts with the onset of the crisis. Only the initial stage, begun two years earlier, would be implemented, while the others would be staggered over a "very long period", the government said.[24] But out of public view, an army of construction workers toiled at a frenetic pace on that RM5 billion first phase. Although extensive, the work avoided scrutiny because it was financed largely by the internal resources of state-owned oil and gas company Petronas, the city's main developer, and because details were deliberately withheld from the media.[25]

  The opposition Parti Islam Se-Malaysia created a sensation in late 1998 by publishing a rare photo of the prime minister's partially completed residence, Seri Perdana, on the front page of its newspaper. It labelled the sprawling complex "Mahathir's mahligai", an otherworldly, or celestial, palace. Hours before he was arrested in 1998, sacked deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim fanned gossip about lavish spending on the palatial abode. He told an international television audience that Dr. Mahathir wanted "to live in a world of fantasy", and that the house would cost taxpayers RM200 million, not RM17 million as Parliament had been informed.[26] From his cell in Sungai Buloh jail, Anwar later wrote that he knew how the official figure had been manipulated. "The building will be the biggest and most sophisticated palace in the country," he said. "It is designed personally by Dr. Mahathir. Everything about it is French."[27]

  Putrajaya's promoters opened the city to reporters for the first time in 1999, just before Dr. Mahathir and his staff were due to move in. Government officials leading the tour were happy to show off general activity — roaring dump trucks and bulldozers, cranes hoisting steel girders, a team of engineers putting the finishing touches on a dusky-pink mosque with a 116-metre minaret. But they seemed embarrassed to discuss the prime minister's new home, on a bluff across a huge man-made lake from his green-domed office complex. One official was asked if the press could visit the residence. "You mean that building?" he replied, gesturing across the water. "That's just a mirage."[28]

  Actually, it was the cost of Seri Perdana, not the bricks and mortar, that proved illusory. As speculation and criticism mounted in 1998, a deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department told Parliament that the residence was divided into "public amenities" and "private quarters", and the private areas would cost "only" RM17 million. In response to Anwar's revelations, the deputy minister adjusted the cost of the private quarters to RM17.5 million and disclosed that the other facilities, such as a banquet hall and state rooms for visiting dignitaries, would amount to RM57.5 million.[29] In 1999, the deputy minister added an extra RM45 million to the bill — for "software", he told Parliament.[30] That would raise the overall cost to about RM120 million, but in 2003 an opposition legislator received a written reply from the Prime Minister's Department with a fresh tally. The final cost: RM201 million, exceeding Anwar's shocking figure.[31]

  Incredibly, Dr. Mahathir argued that he designed Seri Per
dana so big specifically to accommodate Anwar, who has a large family. Had he resigned in 1998 and Anwar taken over as planned, Dr. Mahathir would not have moved to Putrajaya at all, he said. "And the house for the prime minister, because the incoming prime minister, I thought, was going to have six children, so I built six [bed]rooms, not for me. This is for the future. We would like to have, for the residents there, like a White House...Not, whenever you change prime minister, you change residence because it's not big enough".[32]

  In fact, it was Dr. Mahathir who made a habit of changing official homes, Seri Perdana being the second prime ministerial residence he built for himself. His immediate predecessors, Razak Hussein and Hussein Onn, occupied what was supposed to be the permanent quarters for Malaysian premiers, Sri Taman in Kuala Lumpur's Lake Gardens. Dr. Mahathir turned Sri Taman into a memorial for Razak and spent RM11 million, not counting the cost of land, to build the first Sri Perdana in Kuala Lumpur, completed in 1983.[33] It became Galeria Sri Perdana, a memorial for Dr. Mahathir, when he relocated to Putrajaya in 1999.[34]

  As an Asian Silicon Valley, the RM8 billion Multimedia Super Corridor was envisaged by Dr. Mahathir as an information nucleus not only for Malaysia but for the entire region. Launched in 1996, it consisted of a zone 50 kilometres by 15 kilometres linking Kuala Lumpur with Putrajaya and the airport. Wired with advanced telecommunications, it served as an industrial park to attract high-tech industries to Malaysia. Dr. Mahathir recruited a high-profile panel, consisting of a who's who among global information technology players, led by Microsoft's Bill Gates, to advise him on the strategic direction of the venture. But it did not take off fully, partly because the government failed to gear Malaysia's universities to produce specialist graduates required by a knowledge economy.[35] It also lacked the equivalent of a Stanford University, a dynamic research centre where imaginative ideas found urgent commercial solutions to technical problems.[36] The Multimedia Super Corridor generated just US$2 billion in economic activity in a decade, missing the tech outsourcing boom that went mainly to India.[37]