It is obviously a poor reflection of some of Najib diehard supporters.

They are the sort who

apparently aren’t able to handle things that are cerebral — and instead went for the jugular, so
to speak.

Date: Monday, 11 March, 2013, 5:03 AM

Subject: FW: 22 QUESTIONS FOR DR M , AGAIN BY P GUNASEGARAM

22 questions for Dr M, again

 P Gunasegaram
 10:28AM Feb 14, 2013

I became a journalist at the Business Times, then a

QUESTION TIME
standalone newspaper, in 1978.

Three years later in 1981 Dr Mahathir Mohamad became prime

minister of Malaysia, its fourth, succeeding Hussein Onn.

I have followed his career quite closely since and frankly I am not
impressed. He started off with promise - and promised a lot - but
fulfilled none if any.

In fact I would go so far as to say that he was positively the worst

prime minister this country has ever had.

Through destruction of institutions such as an independent judiciary,

running roughshod over civil servants, bringing his brand of power,
patronage and poor economics into decision making, and making
use of oppressive laws he used an iron fist to rule and in the
process brought more harm to this country than any other person
alive or dead.

Much of the problems of Malaysia can be traced back to him and he

has made it difficult for his successors to make major changes going
forward, much of which would involve unwinding processes and
linkages he had put in place before.

Mahathir, after he stepped down, questioned decisions taken by his

successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

True to form, he never stopped intervening and systematically

undermining Abdullah's tenure by making disparaging comments
and organizing dissent against him.

Now he has admitted inflating voter rolls in Sabah during his tenure
by giving citizenship to illegal migrants, justifying this by the
independence agreement of 1957 which granted citizenship to
migrant Chinese and Indians who came here during British rule.

And he has controversially called for the Barisan Nasional to be

given two thirds majority in Parliament so that they can revoke the
citizenship of Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevasan, the clear
implication being you can change the constitution of the country to
take away citizenship of anyone at will, and presumably those who
were given citizenship in 1957 and their descendants.

Questions to ponder on

In June 2006, three years after Mahathir stepped down, I wrote an

article for The Edge, the weekly business newspaper where I
worked then, titled '22 questions for Mahathir'.

This basically questioned Mahathir's leadership by asking 22 groups

of questions for each of 22 years he held power as prime minister.

Considering all that Mahathir has said recently, here's a list of those
22 questions to ponder again - but the original unedited ones which
were slightly different and with minor revisions to take into account
recent developments.

You can judge for yourself what kind of prime minister he was and
what kind of weight we should put on what he says.

1. On clean government. You came to power in 1981 and

introduced the slogan 'bersih, cekap dan amanah' (clean, efficient
and trustworthy) the following year. What did you do to further
that?
Did you make the Anti-Corruption Agency more independent and
effective? Did you ensure that the police did their job properly and
reduce corruption in their ranks?
Did you ensure that ministers and chief ministers did not have
income beyond their legal means?

Did you make the judicial system more effective? Did you do things
transparently?
How many big guns were prosecuted for corruption offences during
your long tenure? What happened to 'bersih cekap dan amanah.?

Tempurung of a different order

2. Press freedom. While your heavy criticism of the government
under Abdullah and your ranting and ravings now get plenty of
coverage in the local media, during your time criticisms against you
by two former prime ministers - Tunku Abdul Rahman and Hussein
Onn - were muted in the mainstream newspapers.

The other, Abdul Razak Hussein, current prime minister Najib

Razak's father, had passed away then. Editors in Umno-linked
newspapers, too, were removed during your time for not toeing the
line.

What have you done to advance the cause of responsible press

freedom? Is it a concept you believe in at all?

3. Proton. You went ahead with the national car project in 1983
despite a number of experts disagreeing with you, especially with
respect to lack of economies of scale.

Why, especially when Proton's profit over the last 28 years came
out of vastly higher prices that the Malaysian public pays, resulting
in considerable hardship, especially to the poorer people who could
not afford cars?

More lately, Proton has been taken over by one of your close
associates Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary's DRB-Hicom. DRB-Hicom's
lack of expertise and economies of scale in car production promises
continued high prices for Proton cars which no doubt you will
support as Proton adviser.

4. Heavy industries. Why did you push into heavy industries such
as steel and cement in the eighties, ignoring studies which
suggested developing resource-based industries instead?

They caused major problems and billions of ringgit in losses. The

steel industry continues to be protected largely because of moves
that you allowed during your tenure as prime minister.

Consequences of thoughtless action

5. Population. Why did you encourage a population of 70 million

for Malaysia and change the name of the National Family Planning
Board to the National Population Development Board?

How do you expect poor people to take care of five, six or more
children? What kind of quality can they provide to their children?

Is this not now reflected in rural poverty and widening income gaps
between the rich and the poor?

6. Immigration. Why did you allow hordes of people to immigrate,

mainly from Indonesia, in such an unregulated way such that there
are as many or more illegal immigrants than legal ones, now
accounting for some two million or more people?

Did you not realise that this will cause serious social problems and
depress the cost of Malaysian labour? Why did you give citizenship
to thousands of them to tilt the balance of voting in Sabah? Where
were your moral standards?

7. On his first deputy. Some five years after you came to power,
there were serious rifts between you and your deputy Musa Hitam.
What was the cause of these problems and is it because you were
heavy-handed and did not consult your ministers?

8. On the first serious Umno split. When Tengku Razaleigh

Hamzah and Musa took on you and Ghafar Baba at the Umno
general assembly of 1987, it caused a serious split in Umno with
you winning by a very narrow margin (761 to 718).

Why did you not seek to heal the rift in Umno post the elections?
Instead you purged Umno and its successor Umno Baru of those
who opposed you causing an unprecedented split in Malay unity.

In 1987 were you not the leader with the least amount of support
that Umno had ever had? Were you not directly or indirectly
responsible for the most serious split in Malay unity?

9. Operation Lalang. Why did you have to resort to this move in

October 1987, when you used wide powers of detention under the
Internal Security Act to detain over 100 people, close down four
newspapers and cause a wave of fear throughout the country?

Was it to consolidate your tenuous hold on power then by using an

oppressive law? You could have used your position as Barisan
Nasional leader to defuse the racial tensions at the time over the
appointment of non-Chinese educated headmasters to Chinese
schools.

Ghost entity ruling the roost

10. Umno Baru. You are of course aware that Umno's correct
name now is Umno Baru because the old Umno was declared illegal
by the courts in 1988.

Why did you not take steps to legalise Umno? Is it because the
formation of a new Umno Baru made it easier to keep out members
who opposed you?

And why did you amend rules to make it extremely difficult to

challenge the incumbent president and deputy president?

Was it to forestall any more challenges to you? Didn't Umno Baru

become less democratic as a result? Did you put in place measures
to prolong your rule?
11. Judiciary. What was your motive in taking action in 1988 to
remove the Chief Justice and several Supreme Court judges from
their positions under allegations of judicial misconduct, a move
which was heavily criticised by the Bar Council and other bodies?

Is it because you needed more compliant judges whose rulings will

not threaten your position of power in a number of cases in court?

Was this the first step in dismantling the judiciary's role as a check
and balance against the legislature and the executive?

What have you to say to repeated assertions by many, including

prominent ex-Chief Justices, who maintain that this led to the
erosion of judicial independence and perceived abuse of power?

Why did you not take any action against a Chief Justice who had
taken a holiday abroad with some lawyers?
Responsible for education decline?

12. Education. You presided over the education system at an

important part of its transformation first as education minister in
the seventies, then as prime minister.

Would it be correct to surmise therefore that you were responsible

for its decline during those years?

Why did you not spend more money and resources to ensure that
our education system was excellent and continued to improve but
instead spent billions on other showpiece projects?

13. Former finance miniister Daim Zainuddin. Why did you give
this one man so much power, allowing him to decide on the award
of virtually all government projects and tenders, and other projects?

14. Cronyism and patronage. Did you not encourage cronyism

and patronage by dishing out major projects to a few within the
inner circle, and especially connected to Daim?

People such as Halim Saad (the Renong group - toll roads,

telecommunications etc), Tajudin Ramli (mobile telephone TRI
group and Malaysia Airlines), Amin Shah Omar (the failed PSC
Industries - multi-billion ringgit naval dockyard contracts), Ting Pek
Khiing (Ekran - the Bakun Dam) to mention just a few? Why did you
not use open tenders and auctions?

15. Privatisation. Why did you allow privatisation to take place in

such a manner that the most profitable parts of government
operation were given away to cronies?

Toll roads had guaranteed toll increases and compensation in the

event traffic projections were not met. Independent power
producers had contracts that guaranteed them profits at the
expense Tenaga Nasional.
No pals in politics holds true
16. Ghafar Baba. Although Ghafar had the highest number of
votes among vice-presidents when Hussein Onn became prime
minister in 1976, you, who got the lowest number of votes, were
chosen as Hussein's deputy.

Yet when you called upon Ghafar to be your deputy in 1987, he

obliged, helping you to win the Umno presidency.

But you did little to back him up when he was challenged for the
deputy presidency in 1993 by Anwar Ibrahim. Can we say that you
stabbed him in the back?

17. Anwar Ibrahim. Did you move against

him because he was a threat to your position
in 1998?

Did you use the entire government machinery

at your disposal to get him sentenced under
trumped up charges of sodomy? Do you think
he got a fair trial? Don't you think the country
suffered terribly because of this power
struggle involving the two of you?

18. Bank Negara losses. How could you

tacitly encourage the central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia to engage
in speculative trades, using as an excuse the need to protect foreign
exchange reserves?

Bank Negara lost some RM32 billion in 1993, according to some

accounts, as a result of taking positions in the foreign exchange
market. In current prices, using an average inflation rate of 3.2% a
year, that amounts to nearly RM60 billion!

19. KL International Airport. Was it really necessary to spend

RM10 billion on a showpiece airport at Sepang when the Subang
airport could have been so easily extended?

The airport was operating way below capacity for years and it
probably is today, 14 years later, judging by its emptiness at some
times during the day. The RM130 million low-cost terminal carries
more passengers that the main terminal!

20. Putrajaya.What is the

justification for spending RM20
billion on a grandiose
government city at a time when
office space was available in
Kuala Lumpur? Could not the
money be put to better use such
as improving educational
resources?

21. Government-linked companies (GLCs). Why did you not

make efforts to improve the performance of GLCs?

Why did you allow funds such as the Employees Provident Fund and
Kumpulan Wang Amanah Pencen to take up dubious investments to
basically help cronies out of their problems?

These have led to billions of ringgit in losses to these funds.

Thankfully, there has been improvements in these areas after you
left.
22. Don't you think you owe it to the nation and the people to
offer explanations over your 22-year tenure which is replete with
examples of incompetence, corruption and cronyism,
mismanagement and misallocation in the billions of ringgit and
which has set the country back years?

Don't you think, more than anyone else, you deserve to be branded
as a traitor to this country for grossly abusing your position as
prime minister?
P GUNASEGARAM is founding editor of business news portal KiniBiz,
a joint-venture with Malaysiakini. He sees democracy as a systems
of laws, institutions, checks and balances to ensure everyone's
rights, not just elections every five years or so.