THE LEADERSHIP OF TUN DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD

INTRODUCTION

1. Malaysia was celebrating 52nd years of independents day just nearly two month ago. Our country is considered as young develop country compare to the world giant power like United States Of America or Russia. Malaysia who facing a lot of challenge like threat from Communist Party of Malaya and few serious world economy crisis development for the peoples.

2. The prosperity enjoyed by all Malaysian today is the outcome from scarification and effort from our previous leaders. The late or former Prime Minister such as Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra al-haj, Tun Abdul Razak, Tun Hussain Onn, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi are the nation development engineers which so brave and so intelligence solving all the threat from internal and external the country. Malaysia will not achieve the status of one of the world most developed Muslim country and having all the first class ‘hardware’ without these leaders.

3. Malaysia shifting their national heritage from agriculture to modern technology during the leading period of Malaysia fourth Prime Minister – Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who known as Asia Little Giant by western country leading Malaysia throughout his 22 years of leadership. He was making Malaysia economy grew strongly and the name of country outshine internationally. Under the leadership of Tun Mahathir, the aim, mission, vision and country development ideas was successfully carried out continuously.

AIM

4. The aim of this paper is to discuss the leadership of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad throughout his 22 years of service as Prime Minister by looking into and the effect to country economy and political development.

SCOPE

5. The scope of this study is to determine five subject areas including what is the definition of leadership, the background of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, his leadership in economy, international relation and eventually in politics matter.

TERMINOLOGY AND DEFINITION

6. Before discuss the topic in further, it is better to define the topic. The word ‘leadership’ can define as “Is a position where some one who has the ability to lead or in charge a group of people”[1] It is a process depending ultimately on the willingness of followers to move toward the goal set by the leader.

7. Leadership demands leading from the front, as manifested by the famous dictum “Follow Me”. It is also requires the leader to lead by example and always be a model to his subordinates.

8. Leadership is the process of influencing men in such a manner so as to accomplish the mission. The leadership theory about to be a good leader, must be looks into seriously [2]. The characteristic as shown as follow :

a. Willpower.

b. Courage.

c. Initiative.

d. Unselfishness.

e. Knowledge.

f. Training.

g. Integrity.

9. Other important components that can make leadership more perfect are like steadfastness, tenacity and strong sense of individual responsibility. The leader must be able to look ahead, what will be the next step and the other one after that. Imagination is the quality that enables him to anticipate the train of consequences that would follow from his contemplated courses of action.

10. Leadership can’t be learn by it self because only by reading the thing doesn’t make a view. So to bet that matter a mentor must be search. A mentor is a person who gives them advice or guidance. A good mentor got these qualities[3] as below:

a. Supportive.

b. Patient.

c. Respectful.

d. People Oriented.

e. Good Motivator.

f. Self Confident.

g. Visionary.

h. Able to generate trust.

i. Experience.

BACKGROUND OF TUN DR MAHATHIR MOHAMAD

11. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was born on 10 July 1925[4] in Alor Setar, Kedah. He was the youngest of nine children of a school teacher and a housewife. His father, Mohamad Iskandar, was a half Indian origin while his mother Wan Tampawan was Malay.

12. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad started his education by attended a Malay vernacular school before continuing his education at the Sultan Abdul Hamid College in Alor Setar[5]. Then he attended the King Edward VII Medical College in Singapore. Upon graduation in 1953, he joined Malayan Government as Medical Officer. He left government service in 1957 to set up his own private practice in Alor Setar.

13. Tun Dr Mahatir Mohamad was elected as Member of Parliament for Kota Setar Selatan during the third general election of 1964[6]. He lost the seat in the following general election in 1969 and sacked from the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) Supreme Council on 12 July 1969 after the race riots of 13 May 1969. He then was subsequently relieved of his party membership on 26 September 1966.

14. He rejoined UMNO on 7 March 1972 and was appointed as Senator in 1973. He relinquished the senatorship post[7] in 1974 in order to contest the general elections where he was returned unopposed in the constituency of Kubang Pasu. Then he appointed as the Minister of Education. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister on 15 September 1978 by the third Prime Minister – Tun Hussein Onn. He became the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia on 16 July 1981 when Tun Hussein Onn stepped down due to health reasons.

LEADERSHIP IN ECONOMY

15. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was a legendary leader of exceptional vision who has single-handedly transformed, modernized, industrialized, and strengthened the national economy. In the other side, there’s also some loud criticism voice that cast him as an oddball of doubtful sanity who only sought to remain in power to protect the interests of his family and closest associates especially during the 1985-86 and 1997-98 recessions[8].

16. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad distinctive foresight, special way of problem solving and importantly his strong leadership successfully bringing Malaysia out from few serious world economy recessions during year 80’s and 90’s. He managed to bring the country envisioning a new stage and type of development after every crisis. Some policy implement by him to overcome the crisis such as fixing currency exchange rate and controlling on foreign investment withdrawal from money market which condemn strongly by western during East Asian Financial Crisis year 1997-98, was implemented by western itself when economy bubbles exploded in year 2007 in United State and sprat to European Union.

17. The leadership of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on economic management can be seen from the two example of policy which he implemented during his service.

LOOK EAST POLICY

18. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad started to show his leadership style and intellectual in economic management since 1981. He utilized greater state intervention to promote heavy industrialization and domestic imitations of Japanese “sogososhas”. The slogan of the period was “Look East Policy” to emulate Japan and South Korea[9]. Many students were started send to Japan and South Korea as preparation on knowledge and technology transfer. His aim of implementing the policy is to accelerating Malaysia development by increase the quality of management among the workers as well as creating a community with good value and positive working ethics.

19. The implementation of the policy making changes in government and private sector, behavior and training such as use of punch cards, manual on work procedures, establishment of Quality Control Cycle and academic studies[10].

20. From the implementation of the policy, we can observe that he trying on lead the nation and change the working culture to become more effective and efficient. He try to reshuffle the system

used to another system which are the foundation to making Malaysian company more systematically managed before dealing with other country[11].

THE PRIVATISATION POLICY

21. Managing the public sector was a heavy burden to the country. From the year 1975 to 1982, the public sector expenditure increased tremendously from 28% to 36%. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad introduced the idea to shift the responsible of managing from government to private sector[12]. Under this policy, he creates more opportunity for the indigenous people to established private corporations and encourages economic growth.

22. The policy directly reduced the government financial and administrative burden and increases the efficiency and productivity in the public sector. The opportunity opens for the indigenous people hasten her objective of the New Economic Policy. This policy creates a high demand for skill and expertise in management and entrepreneurship.

LEADERSHIP IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

23. Under leadership of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s relationship with the West was generally fine despite being known to be an outspoken person when giving an opinion. At the early 80’s, a small disagreement with the United Kingdom over university tuition fees sparked off a boycott of all British goods led by him in “Buy British Last” campaign and this was the beginning for him to search for development models in Asia. As the result, he comes out with his famous “Look East Policy” which has been discussed previously[13].

24. Even though that’s not quite good relation between him and western country especially United States because of his outspoken critics, yet the United States was the biggest foreign investment during Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad rule. Furthermore, Malaysian military officers was continued to train in the United States under the International Military Education and Training program.

25. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad have strong character to the west country and makes him well known around the world. He is a braves leader from a small country to critic those powerful big countries with no fear. As a result from his character that uncomfortable for western, many action taken by them to threaten Malaysia economy. This little giant was successfully protecting the nation interest by balance-up the depending from the west to the east such as China, India and Russia[14]. Western investor started to feel great competition from those new economic and security power and theses no more drastic action taken to Malaysia again.

26. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was always keen to seeking new power in economy to balance the influence by the western. Therefore, he started to maintained close relationship with China since 1990s, especially when China involve in ASEAN. He foresight the huge market of China and the historical tie of Malaysian Chinese will bring economic prosperity in future when China market open widely in future. Other than that, he also improved the relation significantly with another giant communist power – Russia for the same purpose.

27. On the world peacekeeping roles, he has shown to the world, contribution and keen of Malaysia to the peace of the world as request by the United Nation. The best example is the MALCON deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina. During the mission, he personally visited Bosnia few times and shown a great friendship between Malaysia and Bosnia[15]. His action gained respects from other Muslims country and Bosnian to the Malaysia.

28. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was also generally respected in many developing countries particularly because of his ability to generate high economic growth. He was praised by those leaders and they trying to emulate his development formula. He as one of the greatest spokesman on “Third World” issues and strongly supported the bridging of the North-South divide. He was dedicated to various Third World blocs such as ASEAN, NAM and OIC.

LEADERSHIP IN POLITICS

29. The leadership of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in politics of Malaysia was unchallengeable. His ability to maintain his position in UMNO and managed to keeping his party winning every General Election during his service, protrude his intelligence in managing “Barisan Nasional” and influence the peoples continuing support the ledge in 22 years.

30. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the only Prime Minister in Malaysian history which fearless to challenged the veto power of the royal. In 1983 and 1991, he managed to influence the Parliament Members to support his proposal of amendment Malaysian Constitution to reduce royal veto power and their immunity from prosecution[16]. A special court was formed in order to trial cases involved with royalties.

31. There was two major incidents happened during his service which possible to ended his political career. Hence, he successfully overcomes the critical situation by taking drastic action to his opponent and gathers majority support from high level profile party members. The incidents of UMNO de-registered as an illegal society in the High Court in 1988, he was believed to have engineered the dismissal of the Lord President of The Supreme Court and three other Supreme Court justices who tried to block the misconduct hearings. Ten years after that, he facing a tough challenge from his deputy – Dato’ Sri Anwar Ibrahim, who had big influence, supported by many UMNO high ranking person. Dato’ Sri Anwar Ibrahim attempt to replace him as the Prime Minister. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad by using government mechanism had sentenced his opponent to prison because of guilty of sodomy and homosexual assaults[17].

32. From the tenure of service and the way he handling his opponent, we can observed that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had an extreme intelligence and high control on the party, judiciary and government[18]. He make sure the continuity leading of Barisan Nasional to stabilize the political situation of the country. It directly premises his development idea and policy continue for the sack of country profit.

CONCLUSION

33. Throughout the 22 years Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad leading the country, he has bringing a lot of advance vision and major development in society, politic and economy for the nation benefits in short, medium and long term. Although his idea had always been criticize and wrongly interpreted especially by his political opposition, he always firm to execute his plan and prove that his idea are beneficial for the nation after the project successfully stimulate surrounding economy. A lot of big project such as North-South Highway, Penang Bridge and monorails which was condemn strongly last time, has prove now as a country main hardware, supporting the chain of economy[19]. His idea to simplified and improve the effectiveness on public administrative system such as The Privatization Policy, had reduce the burden of government expenses and increase the service to the peoples[20].

34. The presence of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was so significant to Malaysia history as a Father of Modernization and outshine the name of Malaysia in international arena. His achievement of development by his excellent leadership was a very high benchmark set up indirectly to future leader. The foundation pilling by him was the basis for Vision 2020 after his retirement. The leadership quality of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was unchallengeable in this 21st century. His achievement and leadership already become a legend and became subject of research by many intellectual around the world.

(2524 words)

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Book

1. Advanced English Dictionary – English/Bahasa Malaysia Edition.

2. Habermas, Jurgen (1973), Legitimation Crisis, Boston:Beacon Press.

3. Sivamurugan Pandian (2005), Legasi Mahathir, Kuala Lumpur: Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn Bhd.

Internet

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahathir_bin_Mohamad

4. http://pmproject.doubleukay.com

5. http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/biography.html

6. http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/miniatures.html

7. http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/policies.html

8. http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/projects.html

9. http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/putrajaya_geo.html

10. http://geocities.com/tokoh_agung/Tokoh PMMahathir bin Mohammad.htm?200923

11. http://www.ctl.utm.my/merdeka/calon/merdeka24/mahathir.html

-----------------------[1] Advanced English Dictionary – English/Bahasa Malaysia Edition[2] Sivamurugan Pandian (2005), Legasi Mahathir, Kuala Lumpur: Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn Bhd[3] http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/biography.html[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahathir_bin_Mohamad[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahathir_bin_Mohamad[6] Ibid[7] Ibid[8] Sivamurugan Pandian (2005), Legasi Mahathir, Kuala Lumpur: Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn Bhd[9] http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/npolicy_lookeast.html[10] Ibid[11] Habermas, Jurgen (1973), Legitimation Crisis, Boston:Beacon Press[12] http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/npolicy_private.html[13] http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/npolicies_unation.html[14] Sivamurugan Pandian (2005), Legasi Mahathir, Kuala Lumpur: Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn Bhd[15] http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/npolicies_UNPolicies.html[16] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahathir_bin_Mohamad[17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahathir_bin_Mohamad

[18] Ibid[19] http://pmproject.doubleukay.com/projects.html[20] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahathir_bin_Mohamada