PROFILE - Mahathir Mohamad, longest-serving elected Muslim leader

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s tightly packed four-day visit to Turkey is being keenly watched. Both countries represent freedom, democracy and rule of people’s will in the Muslim world.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mahathir are believed to be twin engines of the Muslim world, who pulled their countries, to the path of growth and transformed a lot of people.

“Only two leaders stand out in the Muslim world who transformed their countries. Prime Minister Mahathir under whose leadership Malaysia's per capita income went up. The other country is Turkey. We saw the change in Turkey under then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, where per capita income went up and people's condition improved,” said Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, while paying tribute to two leaders of the Muslim world.

Mahathir, 94, a medical doctor was elected prime minister of Malaysia, after defeating his previous party colleague Najib Razak in May 2018. This was the sixth term, he was elected leader of the country.

Born on December 20, 1925, in Alor Setar, in Malaysia’s northern state of Kedah, Mahathir’s father Mohamad bin Iskandar was a teacher at English language school. Iskandar had nine children.

Mahathir started study life at an Islamic grammar school before joining Sultan Abdul Hamid College.

During his school days, he won a scholarship to support his studies. He later attended King Edward VII College of Medicine at the University of Malaya in Singapore, from where he graduated in 1953.

He started medical practice in 1957 in his hometown, where he was the only Malay doctor at that time. A year before, Mahathir married Siti Hasmah. The two have seven children -- four biological and three adopted.

- Political journey

Mahathir’s political journey had begun during his student days. He later became a prominent face of United Malays National Organization (UMNO) -- Malaysia’s largest political party.

He won his first election in 1964 representing Kota Setar Selatan, in the House of Representatives in Federal Parliament. But he lost in 1969 when he was rerunning from the same seat.

At that time, Malaysia was undergoing racial tensions between the Chinese and Malay. The rift between young doctor-turned-politician Mahathir and then premier Tunku Abdul Rahman grew beyond repair. Mahathir accused the premier in an open letter of “favoring Chinese interests”.

Author of 16 books, Mahathir’s famous work has been his 1970 controversial book, ‘The Malay Dilemma’, where he highlighted Chinese domination and plight of indigenous Malays. The book was banned. But, later, led to the fall of Rahman’s government.

He was reelected to the federal parliament in 1973. From there, he never looked back. He became a cabinet minister in 1974 holding education portfolio and rose to become deputy prime minister in 1976. He was elected president of the ruling UMNO in June 1981.

After the then Prime Minister Hussein Onn retired from active politics, Mahathir succeeded him in July 1981. He became the first politician from a humble background, to hold the high office in Malaysia.

After winning five consecutive elections, he retired from active politics in 2003. But returned to the political arena once again in 2015, forming Malaysian United Indigenous Party (MUIP), which he merged with Pakatan Harapan to form a coalition.

At 93, in January 2018, he announced candidature to contest elections and won with a slim majority.

Many of Mahathir’s ministers are too young that they were not even born when Mahathir first took office in 1981.

- A prime minister with economic vision

The country of 32 million people was transformed into one of the main economics of Asia during his tenure.

He is credited with having led Malaysia’s rapid economic growth, which witnessed coming up of elite projects, including the Petronas Twin Towers, exhibiting his broad vision and ambitions.

Malaysia observed an 8% economic expansion from 1988 to 1996.

He released an economic plan -- The Way Forward or Vision 2020 -- expecting Malaysia to be a fully developed nation by 2020. He privatized government enterprises, including airlines, utilities and telecommunications, which raised money for the government and improved working conditions for many employees.

The North-South Expressway, a highway that runs from the Thai border to Singapore, is considered one of the massive infrastructures that was built under his leadership.

Recently during his visit to the U.K., Mahathir attacked western countries, saying that their claims of being borderless is not consistent on the issue of migrants.

In his address to the Cambridge Union in June, the nonagenarian Malaysian premier said that the West produced the idea of a "borderless world", but meant borderless "only for flow of capital."

"When people started to move, [Western countries] started building walls and barbed wires to keep out people," he said.

Mahathir said his country suffered from a currency crisis during 1997-98, because of a "large quantity of money" coming into Malaysia from abroad pushed up stock values.

- Turkish-Malaysian relations

Turkey and Malaysia enjoy warm bilateral relations since being Muslim-majority countries.

When former Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan shared his idea of forming D-8, an economic grouping of developing Muslim countries in 1998, Mahathir extended his support to integrate the Muslim economies.

Since Justice and Development (AK) Party rose to power in 2002, the bilateral relations witnessed rapid boost.

The latest economic figures suggest that the total trade between the two countries stood at the Malaysian Ringgit 9.79 billion ($2.38 billion).

The ongoing visit of Mahathir is expected to focus on expanding the defense relations as Turkish firms now stand among top 100 arms-producing companies in the world.

- Votary of Palestinian state

Mahathir takes no qualms in describing Israel a “terrorist nation”. Early this year, he banned Israeli athletes from participating in the international Paralympic swimming championship, hosted by Malaysia. The IPC stripped Malaysia of the right, to host the championship due to its ban on Israeli athletes.

"Israel is a criminal state and deserves to be condemned," Mahathir wrote on his personal blog in January, citing Malaysia's solidarity with the Palestinian people.

“Until and unless the international community is committed to finding a solution to bring an end to the occupation of the land, belonging to the Palestinians, the region and the rest of the world will not have much of a chance for stability and order,” he told Al Sharq Annual Conference in May this year in Kuala Lumpur.