Wednesday, 07 August 2013 09:00
If Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had succumbed to the pressure applied by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to spend without a care and continue with some of his pet mega-projects, Malaysia would be bankrupt by now.
This frank assessment was offered by Abdullah in a book covering his years as the prime minister of Malaysia.
Titled, "Awakening: The Abdullah Badawi Years In Malaysia", it was scheduled to come out earlier but there were some concerns in Putrajaya that the fifth prime minister’s comments and observations could spark a war of words between Abdullah and Mahathir and split Umno before the May 5 general election.
Putrajaya need not have worried. Abdullah lobbed a few barbs here and there, and threw a few zingers in the direction of his chief critic but did not reveal state secrets or offer juicy and humiliating anecdotes about the country’s longest-serving PM.
And he could have, he said. Referring to the constant attacks against him by Mahathir and other critics when he was in office, he recalled that some people asked why he did not clarify in detail the role of his young advisers, his son’s involvement in business and the influence of son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin.
“Perhaps I should have been more vehement in defending and explaining these issues. I could have retaliated by exposing Mahathir. But what good would have come out of this for the government and party?” he said.
He noted that Mahathir is very set in his ways and believed that his is the only way. And this fact is why Abdullah believes he has been on the receiving end of vitriol from mid-2006 till today.
After all the layers of biting comments from Mahathir are peeled away, it boiled down to just one thing: Mahathir’s inability to accept any other view except his own.
For example, Abdullah remembered that he went to see Mahathir and explain that he had to postpone several projects, including the double-tracking rail system that the latter had initiated because of the bulging budget deficit.
“He, however, disagreed with me as he felt the government should continue to spend. But how do we do it when the deficit was at such critical levels? It would be highly irresponsible for me to continue spending.
“So we had no choice but to reduce the deficit by postponing some of the mega-projects like double tracking and this made Mahathir furious. I suppose he viewed them as his pet projects.
“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?
“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."
In the book, edited by Bridget Welsh and James Chin, Abdullah also said that when he left office in 2009, he was determined not to be like Mahathir. He wanted Datuk Seri Najib Razak to establish himself as the prime minister.
“That is why I have remained silent all this time. I believe that once you retire, you are retired. You should not interfere with your successor. If there is anything you are unhappy with, you can always offer your views privately. Why bring it up in public and make life difficult for him?
Abdullah earned the biggest mandate from the electorate in 2004 but squandered the historic opportunity to reform the country and carry through many of his election pledges. As a result, in 2008 he led Barisan Nasional to a poor showing, losing its customary two-thirds control of Parliament.
In the book, he accepted blame for not meeting the expectations of the voters but said that Mahathir could not walk away from the 2008 results unscathed.
“When we did well in 2004, he said such a strong mandate was not good for the country. When we did not do so well in 2008, he heaped all the blame on me.
"He is doing it even today… Mahathir cannot deny that he contributed to the erosion of Barisan Nasional’s support in the 2008 elections through his open and unwarranted criticisms and attacks, calling my administration, which included a majority of people from his own Cabinet, as a ‘half-past six government’ and accusing us of corruption and all sorts of things,” said Abdullah.
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Full article: http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=141171:pak-lah-finally-exposes-dr-m-if-i-listened-to-him-msia-would-have-gone-bankrupt&Itemid=2#ixzz2bFSBOebM
wow, Malaysia was almost bankrupt in 2008 economic crisis! Is Be----end and UM---No administer the country efficiently?
ReplyDeletePak Lah: Umno, Malays fixated on 30pc Bumi equity:
ReplyDeletePETALING JAYA, Aug 7 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak faces difficulty in pushing for economic reforms because Umno and many Malays are “fixated” on the country achieving its 30 per cent Bumiputera equity target, former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has written in his new book.
Abdullah, known as Pak Lah, said that Umno viewed the 30 per cent figure as a “quantum of achievement, a share of the economic cake”, when his interviewer James Chin noted that the 30 per cent was just a “figure” that “doesn’t mean anything”.
”They feel insecure if that target is not achieved,” Abdullah said in the book “Awakening” edited by political analysts Bridget Welsh and James Chin, which will be launched later this month.
”That’s why Najib finds it difficult to get through....I think that Najib fears the consequence that it will have on his administration as far as the Malays are concerned.
”He is trying to do certain things and probably does not want to face a backlash which will not allow him to do the other things that he wants to do,” he added.
When Najib became prime minister in 2009, he announced plans to spur economic growth by increasing transparency, promoting meritocracy, and rolling back pro-Bumiputera affirmative action policies.
But his ambitious reforms were derailed by conservatives within his own party and Malay rights groups.
Najib has yet to come up with significant steps to get rid of ethnic privileges that are viewed as benefiting the Malay elite, instead of the impoverished majority.
”Like I said, many have become fixated on that 30 per cent target,” said Abdullah.
”The problem is that we kept repeating this number for many, many years and that has somehow become sacrosanct and imprinted in the minds of many Umno members and Malays. So, removing that target has become difficult,” added Malaysia’s fifth prime minister.
In a report last month, British newspaper The Guardian cited analysts as saying the cloud of the New Economic Policy (NEP) race-based affirmative action may stifle investment and hamper Malaysia’s quest for developed nation status come 2020.
Born from the communal dissatisfaction that climaxed during the May 13, 1969 race riots, the NEP was designed ostensibly to lift the poorer sections of the Bumiputera Malay group in a bid to help it catch up to the economic progress of other communities.
Although technically defunct since 1990, the application of the NEP remains very much alive albeit unofficially.
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- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/pak-lah-umno-malays-fixated-on-30pc-bumi-equity#sthash.tgiDnty9.dpuf
"NEP was designed ostensibly to lift the poorer sections of the Bumiputera Malay group......" It is wrong for the government to use it to help all Malays, as some of them are very rich. The government should focus on helping all Malaysians, and economic progress for the nation first!
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