Mahathir bin Mohamad
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Do Mahathir bin Mohamad , short (Doctor) Mahathir or Dr. M named (born July 10, 1925 in Alor Setar ), was Prime Minister of Malaysia since May 10, 2018 . He previously held this position from 1981 to 2003. On February 24, 2020, he submitted his resignation, at the same time his Bersatu party announced that it would leave the ruling coalition. The king accepted the resignation, but Mahathir was to remain the executive head of government until a successor took office. On March 1, 2020, he was replaced by Muhyiddin Yassin .
In 1997 Mahathir bin Mohamad received the King Faisal Prize for services to Islam.
Life
Beginning of his career
Mahathir was initially a pediatrician and practiced for many years on the Langkawi archipelago in the Andaman Sea before he went into politics. He came to power in the 1970s in the UMNO party, which was permanently involved in government . At the same time he was the leading politician of the government alliance Barisan Nasional , in which the UMNO and other parties reproduce the proportionality of the different ethnic groups in multicultural Malaysia.
prime minister
He was Prime Minister for the first time from 1981 until his voluntary resignation in 2003. The government alliance Barisan Nasional clearly won five parliamentary elections during its tenure. After he became the opponent of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was confronted with accusations of enrichment , he left the largest ruling party, UMNO, in February 2016. He ran in the parliamentary elections on May 9, 2018 as the lead candidate of the opposition alliance Pakatan Harapan ("Alliance of Hope"), which won an absolute majority. The following day Mahatir became prime minister again; he is the oldest head of government in the world. For the first time since Malaysia's independence in 1957, there was a change of power. Mahatir wants to campaign for the pardon of Anwar Ibrahim , who is to succeed him as Prime Minister.
On March 1, 2020, Muhyiddin Yassin succeeded him as Prime Minister.
Economic policy
Mahathir is one similar to Singapore's long-time leader Lee Kuan Yew to an influential generation of Southeast Asian statesmen who carried a remarkable economic development, but ruled authoritarian and heavy-handed - feared and appreciated, not necessarily democratic ( English asian style democracy ) , but not without merit for their country. For example, he started the controversial Bakun hydropower project . His Keynesian economic policy made the high growth rates of the Malaysian economy possible . The Muslim Malays were preferred to the Chinese and Indian minorities (see also Malaysian New Economic Policy ) .
After returning to the post of Prime Minister, Mahathir halted several major projects in 2018. In May 2018, he canceled the construction of the High-Speed-Rail (HSR) to Singapore . In doing so, he interrupted the economic merger with Singapore supported by his predecessor Razak. In August 2018, he stopped several projects with China that are part of the major Chinese project One Belt, One Road , because Malaysia cannot afford the projects in view of its national debt, and there is no need for this infrastructure.
Affairs
Anwar Ibrahim affair
His long-time vice-premier and intended successor, Anwar Ibrahim , was ousted by Mahathir in 1998 and imprisoned the following year (for alleged corruption , and later for alleged homosexual practices). In 2004 he was released from prison. The then US Vice President Al Gore sharply criticized Anwar Ibrahim's treatment at an APEC conference and declared his support for the country's democratic reform movement.
War Crimes Commission
In 2007 Mahathir founded the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (" Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission ") as an alternative to the International Court of Justice in The Hague , which he attributes to a bias in the selection of proceedings.
anti-Semitism
Mahathir bin Mohamad has made racist and anti-Semitic statements about Jews on numerous occasions . He claimed that they were “not just hook-nosed, but instinctively understand money”. Schindler's List , Steven Spielberg's famous film about the Holocaust , was banned by the Mahathir government on the grounds that the film was "too pro-Jewish". An opening speech given by the Malaysian head of state at the meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 2003 caused a particularly high stir . In it he said:
“The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy… They get others to fight and die for them… They survived 2,000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented ... socialism, communism, human rights, and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong - so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries. "
While Western commentators reacted with horror, representatives of several Muslim states, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai , defended Mahathir's speech.
In 1984 he forbade the New York Philharmonic from entering Malaysia because they wanted to perform a piece by the Jewish composer Ernest Bloch . He blamed “the Jews” for the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and distributed anti-Semitic pamphlets such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford's The International Jew at a congress of his UMNO party .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Arne Perras: The tiger stumbles. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . February 24, 2020, accessed February 29, 2020 .
- ^ New York Times: Mahathir Mohamad Quits Malaysia's Governing Party, Citing Corruption
- ^ Hannah Ellis-Petersen: Malaysia election: Mahathir sworn in as prime minister after hours of uncertainty. In: www.theguardian.com. May 10, 2018. Retrieved May 11, 2018 .
- ↑ Radio Australia: Mahathir Mohamad makes shock return as opposition wins poll
- ↑ Manfred Rist: No money for the express train. In: www.nzz.ch. May 28, 2018. Retrieved August 22, 2018 .
- ↑ Manfred Rist: Malaysia cancels Chinese Belt and Road projects. In: www.nzz.ch. August 22, 2018. Retrieved August 22, 2018 .
- ^ Asia-Pacific Malaysian anger at Gore rebuke . BBC News , November 17, 1998.
- ^ Philosophers Stone . Philosophers Stone. Archived from the original on December 27, 2011. Retrieved on December 20, 2011.
- ↑ a b Rousing Muslim bigotry . The Boston Globe , October 23, 2003.
- ↑ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WDQ/is_2003_Oct_20/ai_109021654
- ↑ Wolfgang Benz : The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - The legend of the Jewish world conspiracy . Verlag CH Beck, 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-53613-7 , p. 101
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mahathir bin Mohamad |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Dr. Mahathir, Dr. M. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Malaysian politician, Prime Minister of Malaysia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 10, 1925 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Alor Setar |