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JANUARY 26, 2001 VOL.27 NO.3

'I Am Not Running Away'
The Malaysian PM says he wants to quit, but the party won't let him while it still has problems

WEB-ONLY EXCLUSIVE
This is an expanded version of the interview with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad carried in Asiaweek's Jan. 26 issue. The Prime Minister talked with Asiaweek Editor Dorinda Elliott, Managing Editor Salman Wayne Morrison and Correspondent Arjuna Ranawana in his office in the new administrative capital Putrajaya. The interview:

Race is in the headlines again. Ethnic Chinese groups are demanding meritocracy. Malay students are making their demands. Thirty years after the New Economic Policy began, racial tensions persist. Has the NEP failed?
Mahathir: Some Chinese are extremists, and there are extremists in the Malay group as well and even in the Indian group. They make unreasonable demands, which negate what we call the social contract we entered into at the time of Independence. I think the vast majority of the Chinese people are very tolerant. They understand the reasons behind the policy of positive discrimination that we practice here. They have seen what happened in other countries where there is no attempt to equalize the development of the different communities and how people take it out on the Chinese community. But in Malaysia it didn't happen. We have been very stable all the time. But there is a perception now that the Malays are divided and this is the time to make demands. And of course when one community makes a demand the response from the other community is to be expected, because they see this as a threat.

It no longer seems that the communal lines are clear-cut in a political sense. An example is the cooperation between the Democratic Action Party [DAP] and Parti Islam SeMalaysia [Pas] despite the prediction that this would not last. Is there a basic concern about policies that is being reflected here? Will we see this cooperation continue?
No, it is political strategy. It is opportunism. As you know, several senior members of UMNO [United Malays National Organization] left the party and they knew that the reasons for the success of the Alliance [Barisan's forerunner] and subsequently the Barisan Nasional, was the ability of the different communities to tap each other's strengths during elections. In a Malay majority area where the contest is between Malay and Malay, the Chinese and Indians would keep the balance. In a Chinese area, the Malays would have the same effect. So in the Alliance and the Barisan Nasional, they were able to win elections by getting the support of a minority community in a particular constituency. This was the modus operandi of the Barisan Nasional. So when some UMNO members left the party, and they set up another party of their own, they reasoned that with Pas and DAP, as long as they contested against each other they would never have a hope of winning and they pointed out the success of the Barisan Nasional formula. It is a very negative attitude. They never really mean to co-operate, only for the purpose of the elections.

You don't think the cooperation will continue?
It is impossible, simply because they have very extreme stands, although they try to mask it by saying no, no, no, we have some understanding. But the Lunas and Teluk Kemang by-elections are illustrative of this. In these areas the Malays make up about 40%. There is a big Chinese and Indian population. In the past, the contests have been between Indian and Indian although the Indians are a small minority there. The bigger electorate is made up of Malays and Chinese. When it is an Indian against an Indian, then the Malays will support the Barisan Nasional Indian and some of the Chinese too. The other candidate will come from DAP. They will field an Indian candidate not because the Indians are in a majority but because there is a need for the DAP to show that it does not discriminate against the Indians, otherwise it will lose Indian support which is important for marginal areas. So they field an Indian, so there is an Indian versus an Indian. The support of course must come from the Malays and the Chinese. Now the Indians will have their votes divided between the Barisan Nasional and the DAP. Now who will make the difference? It is the Chinese and the Malays. The Malays will of course support the Barisan Nasional. Very few Malays will support the DAP. So the Malays will give a lot of weightage for the Indian candidate. The Chinese will support the DAP and there will be also MCA and Gerakan [Barisan component parties] Chinese. So when we do the mathematics of this the most likely winner would be the Barisan Nasional Indian. But this time, they fielded a Malay. Now Malays have always wanted a Malay in that area [Teluk Kemang], the same with Lunas. By fielding a Malay they broke the solid support of the Malays for the Barisan Nasional. They got the support of the DAP Chinese, and they got perhaps a little support from the Indians. In the case of Teluk Kemang it didn't quite work out for them. They managed to reduce our majority. But in Lunas, the Chinese turned against the Barisan Nasional because of the issue of the Vision Schools and the issue of the Chinese demands, whose proponents were able to influence the Chinese to such an extent that the Malay votes plus the Indian votes was not enough. The Malay vote was split because it was a Malay versus an Indian, and with the Malay votes plus a big chunk of the Chinese vote and maybe a few Indian votes, it gave them that small majority of 503 votes. So it is just political opportunism. It is not real collaboration and the argument by them was that if we put a Malay candidate against the Indian candidate the Malays will not vote for the Indian candidate but will vote for the Malay candidate. So the Malays were split.

Many people say that UMNO and the whole Malaysia Inc. system has been tainted by cronyism and that may be part of the reason why the Malays are so divided. Is it time to reassess the NEP policy and to create a system that leads to meritocracy?
The idea of cronyism etc. is not a local idea. It appeared first in foreign magazines, including Asiaweek. We have the NEP policy that has benefited some 7 million Malays. Not just one or two, 7 million Malays. Initially what we were doing was giving 30% shares in new companies to individuals. They registered some 10,000 individuals who were selling their shares off immediately and making a profit from that. But the government noticed this and decided to take the shares and give it to a body, called the National Investment Corporation or Perdananang Nasional Berhad (PNB), which will trade as an open-ended unit trust. All the shares were put there and are available to all the Malays who have a hundred dollars. As a result, some four and a half million Malays have got shares through that organization. Small shares, but everybody has shares, because we give to people who otherwise won't have shares. On the other hand, giving shares to PNB would mean that Malays will never have any opportunity to grow into having their own companies. So it is necessary that Malays who show some capability, if they have performed well, then they would be helped to grow by allocating some shares to them, perhaps in the course of privatization. Because we promised that there would be equality between the Chinese and the indigenous peoples at all levels. Not only at the lower levels. In fact, at the lower levels the indigenous peoples are in the majority. In the middle-class they are in the minority. But at the highest level, at the big business level there were hardly any Malays. If we help the Malays only at the lower level, then forever they will stay there. They have to be brought up. So we gave them opportunity in certain cases where they have shown some capacity. These people, I certainly did not know them before they appeared on the scene. But, having found that they are able, we have to build them up, so that at the top level, at the middle-level and at the lower level there will be equitable sharing of the growth of this country. Otherwise you will only increase the number of Malays at the lower level, have few at the middle level and few or none at the top level and that will create a lot of unhappiness and make people say how is it that we share only the poverty, we don't share the wealth. We are open to the accusation that we have cronies, but then to whom do we give? We cannot give to anybody. Anybody who is given shares, whether he is known or not known by government leaders, or prominent or not, immediately he is labeled a crony. Now we don't do that kind of thing. However there were certain people who did have their cronies, and those are the people who actually accuse us of cronyism. First they were practicing cronyism. There were several companies, which were given huge contracts, not necessarily Malays or indigenous people, because they were supporting the private agenda of these people.

These people are still in power?
It is the [former] deputy prime minister, at that time also minister of finance, who was giving away shares, giving away contracts ?huge contracts to companies here ?including one to a foreigner who is close to the deputy prime minister, who is supposed to be a very religious man. He gave contracts to a daughter of a leader of another country. He gave contracts to a lot of his cronies. He gave banking licenses to his friends who otherwise would not get a banking license. These are his cronies. They support him. We don't know where the money is coming from. But Pas and Keadilan have plenty of money. They spent huge sums of money during the elections and the by-elections. So these are the cronies. The cronies are there, there are several Malays also we have identified. But we don't want to oppose them, because we are happy if they succeed. I have not discriminated against them because of that. People tell me these are Anwar [Ibrahim]'s cronies, I don't care. If they can do well, I will help; I have helped them. He was building support for himself, money for himself. We cannot bring this to the courts because nobody is going to give evidence. We have some evidence of money being stashed away somewhere, but we cannot get the co-operation of foreign banks to tell us where the money is.

On the question of affirmative action, everybody is talking about globalization. You talked about the need for Malaysia to compete. If you keep protecting the bumiputras with affirmative action policies, won't Malaysia forever be left behind?
Well, we will have to protect them until we achieve equality. We'll have to protect them because it is in the interest of the country's stability. There is a feeling among international experts, among economists, that affirmative action is bad. That people who are poor should remain poor, people who are lacking in skill should not be helped, [that] if they want to they can climb up [themselves]. Do you want to see in Malaysia, where the Malays are in the majority, that they are thrown to the side while those who are clever and powerful and have the money dominate everything? As you know, people who are rich tend to become richer and people who are poor tend to become poorer.

Turning to the economy, how vulnerable do you think Malaysia is to a downturn in America and Europe?
We are a trading nation. Much of the GDP comes from trade. Now if there is a downturn and they cannot buy the products that we produce, obviously this will affect us. But the downturn will not affect every country and we should concentrate on switching our trading partners. I am quite sure if the American economy goes down, I think it will affect us. But we hope to minimize it.

Do you think the delayed restructuring of the big companies and the property loans in particular are delaying the recovery of the economy?
No. I think we have made better progress than most other countries affected by this. We have set up the asset management company, the bank recapitalization company and the Corporate Debt Restructuring Committee and they are doing sterling work and have succeeded. There are some companies which are in bigger trouble than others and they will find difficulty. I would like to again emphasize that when you halve the value of a currency, and then you reduce the share prices by 90%, any company no matter how strong they are, no matter how well managed they are, they are going to fail. You know the American government came up in support of, I think it was Chrysler or GM or Ford, I forget which, with almost a gift of $2 billion. That's how they recovered. They would have gone under without help. That to me is bailing out. But we have not given any company any money.

Regarding the slowdown in the U.S. economy, you said you would make adjustments in response. FDI is also a problem in Malaysia. It's falling and there is a perception, puzzlement even, that the prime minister of Malaysia criticizes or attacks the West, which is the source of the wealth, of the FDI.
Well, we have been criticizing other countries a long time and the investments have been coming in. And the people who know Malaysia are still investing in this country. They are coming in, big companies are putting in money in this country because they like the stability, they like our currency management, so they put money in. But the FDI coming into Malaysia is real money going into productive capacity. While the money going into other countries is going into buying bankrupt companies, bankrupt banks. It is not really FDI. That money is going in because these countries have been forced to sell off their companies.

Yet the foreign investment here has been declining.
It has been declining throughout the whole area. If you look at the situation before the Crisis and you look at the situation now, there has been a decline. A lot of money is going to Europe, to America, and little is coming to this region. The Japanese economy is in bad shape and they are not investing either. So it is not Malaysia's internal policy or aggressive foreign policy which is affecting investment. At least not much. We are still getting a lot of investment.

Another need of Malaysia at this time is the search for foreign partners. I refer to the discussion about MAS [Malaysian Airlines], that Swissair may be involved, and also Proton and Ford. Is there a change in policy? Are you going to allow foreign investors to buy some of the national assets?
They have always had shares in the national assets through the stock market. At times the foreign holdings have exceeded the 25%-30% that we have fixed simply because there is no way we can monitor every transaction every day. But now a lot of shares of foreigners in the stock market may have been reduced because of various reasons but there is definite interest in some of the big companies like Proton and MAS. If we accede to the conditions that they want, immediately it would be on. For instance they would want 100%. We are not having that.

They want 100% equity?
They want to acquire the whole thing. That is against our policy. We want to retain majority interests in these companies. But we are not against strategic partners. They must show that they can contribute something for taking from our share. It's not to be a majority share, but a share.

Proton, for instance, what sort of partner are you looking for? There is a lot of talk about Ford wanting to join.
We are looking at some technology-sharing arrangement, if they bring in technology. They can take a share. But they must give us something. Not just take a share, because we have developed this company.

Is there any development on the MAS front?
As you know the government is going to reacquire the MAS shares from Tajudin [Ramli]. Actually, we can do things through the golden share we have there, but we don't want to do that. Once we acquire the shares there are a lot of things we want to do, restructuring. There are a lot of things, management things, that have to be done at MAS.

People say that this might be cutting loose some so-called cronies. Is it a sign of some kind of significant change ?that you are saving the company and not the person?
You can say that, of course, this is the usual talk. But our main interest is the company and the people employed by the company. We feel a sense of responsibility. Just because of one person we are not going to do anything. However, if the fate of a company and its employees is at stake, we will do what is required, even if people say we are helping cronies. We have seen other people bailing out their cronies in a more blatant way than we do here.

Are you reviewing the peg on the ringgit?
I don't know why everybody keeps on asking me this question. It has done nobody any harm. Up till now it has done us a lot of good. Until the international financial system is changed, so that people cannot destroy whole economies simply because they want to make money for themselves, I will not review the peg.

Would you rule out a re-pegging?
It depends. We have always said that if the difference between us and the neighbors is 20% or more we will think about re-pegging, but not to that extent. At the moment it is not 20%. They have depreciated about 10%. If we become uncompetitive we will reconsider. We live in competition with our neighbors. So we have to work that out very carefully.

Switching back to politics, in the general election a year ago and at by-elections since, UMNO lost support. Can you tell us the reasons for this, and what efforts are being made to win back support and with what success?
Like other things there isn't one reason. There are many reasons. Of course the clever use of the Anwar issue played a very big role. Especially that picture, with the black eye, which was worn on the shirts of the supporters on polling day, and people of course feel that this is grossly unfair. Almost as if I went and beat him up. But the opposition never tried to explain that it was not I. It was somebody else, and I had no control over some spontaneous reaction by people, even if they serve under me. But I get the blame and the party gets the blame and we lost support because of that. And then of course the [tactic] by the Islamic party to threaten people not well versed in religion, that if they vote for UMNO and Barisan Nasional, that they would go to hell. We had people, UMNO ladies, who had consistently voted for UMNO [before] saying, Well, I am old now, I am going to die soon, this time I don't think I will vote for you. Excuse me, I will vote for Pas. Just to make sure that if there is some truth in this, then I will not go to hell. That kind of thing. They frightened people. They have created hatred, built up a feeling of hatred towards the government, which they started 30 years ago, beginning in the kindergarten, where the children are given pictures of government leaders? lately, of course, it is my picture? to spit on, to stamp on, to tear up. They even have some cartoons for children to color. If you want I can show you. I have got the picture here. It is a coloring book with cartoons of myself. When you build up hatred in the minds of children, it stays there. Now those children have grown up, they go to the schools, to the universities, they meet those religious teachers who plant this hatred, and now they are out, they hate the government. For the first time we find people who are well-educated, professionals hating the government. They say the government is corrupt, the government is not transparent and practices cronyism, and they are the actual beneficiaries of all our policies. They have also been told that they should not be grateful to people who give you things. In other words, if you receive that it is not a reason for you to be grateful.

From an outsider's point of view, it seems that the hatefulness comes from Malaysian politics. When you dismissed your deputy and then he ends up getting caught in this cruel judicial process, that's what brings people on to the streets.
You bring up my deputy, but you should listen to what I said about him. This man, who had been brought up by me, pushed up until he became my deputy, all along was working for himself. He joined UMNO not because he believes in UMNO. He had a choice. His inclination would have been to join Pas, the Muslim party. But he joined UMNO because he foresaw no future for Pas. There was no way Pas could ever make him a prime minister. But there was a greater possibility that he could become a prime minister if he is in UMNO. He had no commitment to UMNO. He came in because he thought he would be able to control UMNO and turn it his own way. And all along he was plotting ?according to some people he expected to become prime minister within 10 years. You can imagine his frustration after 10 years I am still the prime minister.

But with all due respect, Dr. Mahathir, weren't you both playing the same game? You brought him into UMNO because you needed to bring the Malay Islamic factor into UMNO.
I brought him into UMNO to keep him from joining Pas and creating mischief. I would have thought that once you are in UMNO you must accept UMNO's struggle. Not make use of UMNO for your own personal purpose. He built up cells in every organization. In the police, in the armed forces, in the civil service, among the students, among the university teachers, abroad. He was building up personal loyalty to him, using his power. Once he became deputy prime minister his next step was to overthrow me. He had overthrown a whole series of people, [former deputy prime minister] Ghafar [Baba] among them. The next target was me. I could not imagine a person I helped would do that. But now I have people telling me how he plotted against me, although his dismissal had nothing to do with politics or economics. He went along with me even when we imposed the currency controls because at that time he was still in the government. But after that I found out that his attempt to push me out was very real. I thought he wouldn't succeed. But now I am not so sure that if he had challenged me while he was still in the party that I could win. In 1987, when I was challenged by Tengku Razaleigh [Hamzah], I very nearly lost. So [Anwar] was quite hopeful that by building up cells of support in the UMNO itself, he would be able to overthrow me. This is the kind of person he is. Once action is taken against him, he told me he would fight. And his fight, of course, includes the usual things he used to do before, when he was outside the party, get students to demonstrate. Now he was much more sophisticated, of course. He had a lot of connections so you can notice that while he was in the government there was no demonstration. Once he is out of the government, demonstrations start. That's my deputy. You see I am very happy I discovered him in time, and I did so for a different reason, because of his bad morals. That was the reason. Without that I think he would be the prime minister now because I had planned to step down in 1998.

Do you ever wonder, if this hadn't been discovered, as you say, what kind of Malaysia it would be now with Anwar as leader?
I think he would make use of his position. Already we can see that he made use of the police to threaten people. I was in the Ministry of Home Affairs for a long time. I have never made use of the police to threaten anybody. But he had no compunction about telling the police, go and frighten that person, and he wasn't even in charge of the police. He called them up and told them go and frighten them. A man of that character, anybody who goes against him will lose out. We know one contractor who was very good but he was not in favor because he was not doing something that would get the favor, so he had his contracts taken away from him. Other contractors had got their contracts, big contracts. So he will make use of his power; whether he will throw people into jail or not is a different matter. I didn't throw him into jail. He reported himself to the police and the police discovered there is truth in the accusation in the book, and as a result of that he was charged. My job was really to remove him from the cabinet. The supreme council of the party [UMNO] removed him from the party.

Most people say that in Malaysia, people are turning toward Pas because they feel that it is cleaner than UMNO.
Pas is no cleaner. You can take a flight over Lojing in Kelantan and you can see the hills that have been shaved off because Pas has given these areas for logging to their supporters which they shouldn't because it is very near a catchment area.

But aside from the Anwar factor, the opposition capitalized on the perception that UMNO was elitist or moneyed, and since then UMNO has been concentrating on the grassroots and appealing to the young.
I have admitted this before. I have told UMNO in many of my speeches, you have to behave yourself. We tried to amend the constitution, prevent that kind of UMNO from emerging. Over the years, because of the success, because of the economy, of the country, these people have become materialistic. I admit that. I have told them openly, you must not have money politics. It is a very tough battle to fight.

Are you winning?
Yes, some have changed, some begin to realize. But some grassroots people say, well, we only get a few dollars. The people we elect make so much money for themselves, why do you grudge us these few dollars? I said the mentality is wrong. If you support because of money you are going to put a man who has used money into a position of power. Such a person is not going to be a good leader. They will destroy the whole lot of us. I told them that UMNO is weak because there is no dedication, the way we were dedicated before. We did not get into UMNO in order to benefit personally. Yes they do succeed, they become ministers and get money. But that is not the purpose. You have to pay ministers, you have to pay the prime minister. But the purpose is not to make money. The purpose is to serve. I have told them again and again, but there is this usual feeling ?it is only a little, why do you begrudge us that, and if we don't take it somebody else will. That's the argument, and how do you argue against that? Somebody else is also saying, if I don't take it somebody else will take it. Actually not many people take bribes. But those who take it always say other people are taking bribes. So I ask them, you say somebody is taking bribes, can you give me proof? Oh, we cannot give you proof because it is not nice. I've got my frustrations with my own party, I admit the party is weak, and in some cases morally they are not very good either.

How do you explain the spread of Islam, meaning political Islam, in your country and around the region?
These Muslim extremists, they just want to grab power, and they find that Islam is a very useful instrument for that, in order to frighten people into supporting them. To the extent that once people become their followers they become so fanatical, that even when their leaders do wrong things they still support them. So Islam is a very powerful factor. We don't use it for our political purpose, but these people do.

What about the rise of radical Islam in the region ?what are these people reacting to?
It is not Islam at all. In Malaysia, they go against the teachings of Islam. I can quote a number of things they say which are against Islam. For example, they say don't be grateful to the government, which is against the teaching of Islam. And one of their writers, Shahnon Ahmad, used obscene words in his book, and this [Pas] leader, Nik Aziz, dared to say that God uses obscene words, and his followers still adhere to him. He says you vote for Pas you go to heaven. What happens to countries where Pas is not operating, you mean to say all those Muslims there are going to hell? I can quote a number of things which they do which are against Islam but they use the word Islam because it is a very useful magnet to attract support for themselves. They are not fighting for Islam. We are fighting for Islam. In Malaysia is there anything that I do that is against Islam? They want us to apply the hudud law, but the hudud law is not applied in any Muslim country; we investigated. If they say that we are not an Islamic country because we do not apply hudud law, then there is no Islamic country in the world. We checked. Yes, in some cases they do chop off hands, but the question of four people becoming witnesses in the case of rape or whatever, I tried to find out globally which country applies this. It may have been applied at the time of the Prophet, but we have an imperfect Muslim community, we can't.

What is the cause of the findings of surveys on campus that showed that Malays refused to share rooms with Chinese?
That is a Pas idea. Pas would like Malays and Chinese to separate. They want to be very different and this has happened in the national schools, for example. Where many Chinese were going into the national schools where the education is in the national language, these people introduced so much religion into the school activities that the Chinese have become frightened and they are not going to these schools any more. Islam does not teach that you should separate yourself from non-Muslims. These people are teaching them: be different. Even in other respects also, [these] Muslims must distinguish themselves from other Muslims. They have resorted to wearing the skullcap, to wearing Arab clothing in order to be different. I don't see why we can't wear coat and tie like the non-Muslims and be friends with them. In my own constituency I invite them for breakfast during the fasting month. The Chinese and Indians just eat with us and then we go and pray. I say, don't keep people away from the Muslims, otherwise you will be inward-looking. But Pas would like them to be inward- looking, separated from not only the non-Malays but also the Muslims who they say are too friendly with the non-Muslims. These are not true Muslims.

By the next elections there will be more young voters in Malaysia and the party thrust, I believe, is to appeal more to the young.
Well, we are all going to age and die anyway. Unless the party is renewed from the bottom, I can't see how it can survive. We try to get the young. Before, our policy was we must not disturb students in the universities, we want them to study, we have worked so hard to give them an education, we don't want to burden them with political ideas and get them into conflict with each other. While we stayed away, Pas sent their people in and began to subvert them with all kinds of religious ideas which are not even religion, which are not even Islam and now suddenly we find that when we talk to them, they are against us. So we have to win them over. We have to explain to them what is the truth.

Do you see a young generation rising who is going to change the country? Young Malaysians increasingly seem to say they are frustrated by the system that they see around them which is opaque.
I was young once also. The idealism of youth, but when you grow old you face reality. There are certain things we can do, certain things we cannot do. There are realities that can frustrate you. If you give up through frustration then you are no leader, but if you carry on then you have to accept that there are certain things that you cannot do.

When you gave a speech in Hong Kong recently, you talked about the West attacking Asia and Asian systems. And you were asked about the young professionals around the region who are upset about cronyism and corruption. You responded that you felt these young professionals are naive.
They just repeat this accusation because they have read about it somewhere or heard it somewhere. But why don't they examine properly what we are doing in Malaysia? We don't practice cronyism here. I don't say there is no corruption, there is corruption, in any society, but in Malaysia it is still under the table. It is not above the table, not accepted practice. But cronyism, that I will refute, because I don't help people because they are my cronies. I help people who have ability. Tell me, how do I help the Malays to come up if any Malay I pick becomes a crony?

There are objections from the Chinese to your idea of a [multiracial] Vision School. Is that a reaction to Pas?
No I don't think so. This small group of Chinese, some of them are extremists who think this is the proper time for them to make demands, that's all. I don't think that is the general view of the Chinese. The Chinese, being Chinese, they don't want to go against that because they want to appear to be pro-Chinese.

Are you saying that because they supported your government in the last general election they are trying to bargain for something more?
Even in the last election, these Suqiu people [Chinese lobby group] brought up their demands. Then they were sidelined, but now they have come up again. In the committee we set up to design the [NEP] policy for the next ten years, you have everybody, and these Chinese extremists were in that committee. They were making demands which were rejected by the Malay representatives and one of them [David Chua] inadvertently voiced his view about what went on inside that committee and that started a row and then these Suqiu people thought it was an appropriate time to bring up these demands again.

After being in power for 20 years, recently there have been criticisms of your leadership style from within the party. How do you respond?
Yes, I have been in power over 20 years. It is not for want of a desire to step down, but simply because my party won't allow me to step down.

Won't allow you to step down? They say no, things are not yet stabilized. I am still needed. It's very embarrassing. But my wish was that I would step down in 1998. Maybe I'm getting old, but that is for the party to decide. One or two people may say this [the criticism], but those people have contributed nothing at all, so nobody cares for them so they can say what they like. I listen to their criticism, I examine myself. If there is any substance in what they say, okay I will correct myself.

Do you think you will be leading the party in the next general election?
I should hope not. We will have to work that out. I am not running away when the party is having a problem.

About your legacy. Many people who have admired you in the past say that you are ending your career on a low note: as an authoritarian figure who destroyed his deputy, tolerated cronyism and unreasonably fought globalization. Does this sadden you?
I have been asked this before. What do I want people to think of me when I go. I just don't care. I want to do what I think I should do and I am satisfied with the results. I know what they say about me is not true, but I cannot make them believe otherwise. I don't care if people say I am a dictator, because I know I am not. If they say I practice cronyism, I know I don't. What do I care about accusations that are made without basis? In the career of any politician there will be people who will like them and want to tell the people that this is the greatest guy in the world, but then there will be people who will like to kill me. When I became leader of the party, I kept on telling UMNO, please don't praise me. You know in the meetings of UMNO they keep on saying, the beloved prime minister, etc. I said, please don't praise me. I know one day you are going to hate me. What is important is what we do together, and we have done it. If you make a comparison between what is done in this country and what is done in other developing countries you will have a fair idea whether there has been success or not. I am not claiming anything for myself. Frankly, one of the first orders I made when I became prime minister, in fact when I became minister of education, I told them no school is to be named after me. And no schools should be named after living persons. When I became prime minister, no pictures of me to be displayed in government offices, because I don't like personality cults.

What do you think you will be remembered for?
I don't care.

It was said many months ago that the deputy prime minister will concentrate on day-to-day government affairs while you would focus more on party affairs? Is that how things are now?
Well, more or less. But government affairs claim a lot of my time. I would like to concentrate a little bit on the party because I think I need to revive the dedication of the members.

As you look back over your career, what are your greatest regrets?
I don't know. Maybe I regret going into politics, I should have stayed a doctor. Well, people loved me. When I was practicing I was very popular.

Do you think you made some mistakes in recent years?
I under-assessed certain things. I think that when I removed my deputy I did not make any mistake. But I under-estimated his capacity for creating trouble.

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