Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to Retire on October

“I am really retiring this time. The successor seems reliable.”

“Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (77), who served longest as the elected leader in Asia said on May 8 that he will resign late October.

“I will retire after returning home from the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference of 57 nations) which is held in the capital city Kuala Lumpur between October 11~14” announced Prime Minister Mahathir at an completion ceremony of a plant of Petronas, a government- owned petrol company.

"I wanted to resign right after the summit meeting, but I delayed it to late October because some countries asked me private talks after the meeting,” Prime Minister Mahathir said.

Returning home after 2 months of vacation, he resumed his official duty. He praised Deputy Prime Minister (63) Abdullah Ahmad Badawi whom he pointed as his successor for his excellent handling of the War with Iraq occurred during March and April and SARS.

Two people died of SARS, but SARS has been controlled ever since.

“Abdullah never called me to ask me what the biggest issues are, he is a man who can handle things by himself” Prime Minister Mahathir said.

It is known that Prime Minister Mahathir is planning to let Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah to hold real power while letting Abdullah who has gentle style of the government career path command the next year`s general election.

Prime Minister Mahathir announced a surprise resignation announcement last June at a meeting of the United Malays National Organization, withdrew it in less than a day because of the persuasion from his party leadership. Prime Minister Mohamad, however, had already said just before his March vacation that he would resign indirectly demanding people to prepare `Malaysia without Mahathir`.

After he was elected as Prime Minister, he changed Malaysia from a country which exports natural resources such as rubber or tin to a country which manufactures electronic appliances, steel cars, BBC reported. Malaysia has hence become a country with middle class and there are now wealthy Malaysians having over 1 billion dollars.

He tried to make Malaysia to enter into the global economy at the beginning of his power, but he criticized western countries without reserve based on Moslem values. He also tried to have his people to have high pride and he made efforts in building an electronic complex, `Multimedia Super Corridor`, and `Petronas Tower` which is the tallest building in the world.

He is, however, being criticized of having been retaliating on his political opponents. For instance former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was imprisoned of being homosexual. In addition, there is some criticism that his economy development plan was in too large scale that he made Malaysia to have a lot of debts to other nations today.

Ki-Tae Kwon kkt@donga.com