When Dr. Mahathir’s wife passed away at the age of 100, a truly long-lived couple comes to mind. There isn’t much to say about the deceased lady, but there is plenty to say about her husband. In modern Malaysian history, right after Tunku Abdul Rahman, it goes without saying that Mahathir stands tall. It is clear that Dr. Mahathir Mohamad securely built the economic and political foundations of modern Malaysia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rather than imitating the West, Mahathir adopted work discipline, technology, and industrial development policies from Japan and South Korea under his “Look East Policy,” successfully transitioning Malaysia from an agrarian country into an industrial nation. Similarly, he set strategic goals under Vision 2020 to reach developed nation status by the year 2020, rapidly advancing infrastructure, technology, and industrial sectors. In 1983, he established Proton, the national automobile brand, making Malaysia the first Southeast Asian nation to manufacture its own cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the post-war era dominated by Western powers, few Muslim nations managed to forge ahead economically and politically, and Malaysia was one of them. The Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), Putrajaya (the present-day capital, which Naypyidaw seems to emulate), and the North-South Expressway are world-renowned milestones. Having personally driven along the highway in 2011 connecting the northern border with Thailand to the southern border with Singapore, I witnessed the strategic importance of this route. Mahathir revolutionized trade and logistics by building this highway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also handled the financial crisis caused by George Soros’s currency speculation. Soros and other speculators shorted the Thai Baht and Malaysian Ringgit by borrowing them short-term from banks and dumping them in huge volumes onto the market. Governments tried to defend their currencies using foreign exchange reserves, but once reserves ran low, currency values plummeted by more than half. Speculators then bought back the devalued currency cheaply, repaid the bank loans, and made billions in profit. While other Asian nations (Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea) followed IMF directives to raise interest rates and cut public spending, Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir firmly took the opposite route by implementing unconventional capital controls in September 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mahathir pegged the Malaysian Ringgit at a fixed rate of 1 USD = 3.80 MYR, eliminating speculative trading. Furthermore, he gave an ultimatum that offshore Ringgit (such as in Singapore) must be repatriated to Malaysia within one month or become worthless paper currency, neutralizing offshore short-selling tactics. As a third measure, foreign investors were prohibited from repatriating capital out of the Malaysian stock market for one year (later gradually relaxed via exit levies). While the IMF advised raising interest rates, Mahathir lowered domestic interest rates. This allowed local businesses and banks to avoid bankruptcy, kept credit flowing, and prevented runaway unemployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By rejecting IMF assistance and conditions during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, Malaysia preserved its economic and political sovereignty. Later, economists and even the IMF acknowledged that Malaysia’s strategy was effective. Malaysia avoided falling into a foreign debt trap and emerged from the crisis with minimal damage, thanks to the efforts of the Prime Minister and Malaysian financial experts. (I will refrain from going into what happened in Myanmar at that time.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By pegging the Ringgit to the US Dollar, Malaysia repelled currency speculators, minimized economic damage compared to neighboring countries, and accelerated its economic recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, Mahathir was prominent for criticizing Western imperial power dynamics and historical interventions, standing out as a notable voice of the Third World. During his 22-year tenure (1981\u20132003), he transformed Malaysia into a peaceful, industrialized country. In 2018, at the age of 92, he made a historic political comeback, defeating the coalition led by UMNO\/BN that had held power for over 60 years, becoming the world’s oldest head of government as Prime Minister for a second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite some criticisms regarding power concentration and political opposition, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad is etched in world history as the “Architect of Modern Malaysia” who transformed a small agrarian nation into one of Asia’s Economic Tigers. In terms of influence, tenure, and overall impact, Dr. Mahathir is the most prominent Malaysian leader after Tunku Abdul Rahman. While Tunku is the “Father of Independence” who led the peaceful transition to independence from Britain and united the peninsula into the modern Malaysian federation, Mahathir transformed that agrarian nation into a world-class industrial state with modern infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n