Daily Times

“The Eurocentric world is finished. Asians have now found the formula.” Mahathir Mohamad

After concluding a two day official visit to Malaysia, Imran khan is back. The visit was a part of his ongoing quest to seek monetary assistance from friendly countries in order to replenish the empty exchequer of the country and thereby lessen its chronic banking on an IMF bailout. During his visit, the Prime Minister met his counterpart Mahathir Mohamad, a leader whom he always adored and held in high esteem because of the enviable role he played in the development of Malaysia. While recognizing Mahathir’s achievement, Khan remarked: “We look up to him (Mahathir) – a leader who transformed his country, we have followed Malaysia’s progress and my party wants to learn from your leadership; how Malaysia transformed its economy and raised the per capita and GDP”.

Sworn in as the world’s oldest prime minister, 92-year-old Mahathir was leading a life of political hibernation after his successful and exemplary tenure that lasted between 1981 and 2003. He made an extraordinary comeback this year after defeating his former protégé Najib Razak. People voted Mahathir so that he could bring corrupt elements to the book and put the country’s derailed economy on the track again. Therefore, Mahathir after assuming the office of premiership ordered an inquiry into the multi-billion dollar corruption scandal that engulfed the previous government. Malaysian officials are alleged to have looted more than $ 4.5 billion in public funds. The US Attorney General Jeff Sessions described this as “kleptocracy at its worst”.

Pakistan is also facing a similar situation. Imran khan, during a joint press conference said: “we both came to power, people gave us a mandate on anti-corruption platform, and we are facing a similar situation.”

Malaysia can definitely help us in our anti-graft drive by sharing their experience of tracing white collar crimes. To this end, Imran khan held an exclusive meeting with the chief of Malaysian anti-corruption commission who asked him to send Pakistani anti-graft officers to Malaysia for training and attachment.

Mahathir brought about an economic revolution in Malaysia. He was the key architect and a leading force of turning Malaysia into a major industrial power

Besides, if we have a look at Malaysia’s astounding development under Mahathir during his previous tenure from 1981 to 2003, we may find many lessons and modus operandi pertaining to how he transformed the political, economic and social landscape of his country.

Mahathir came to power in 1981 and was the first non-aristocratic leader of Malaysia. His victory gave a serious death blow to the dynastic politics of his country. He is credited with replacing colonial subservience with national pride, and raising a country from third world to developed world status at a stunning pace.

Mahathir brought about an economic revolution in Malaysia. He was the key architect and a leading force of turning Malaysia into a major industrial power. Credit goes to him as well for transforming Kuala Lumpur into a modern city with one of the tallest building and high-tech industrial areas. Moreover, he introduced “Malaysia can” slogan in 1993, and developed the vision 2020 program in which he envisioned to make Malaysia a fully developed country with 70 million people (compared to 20 million in 1988) by the year 2020.

In addition, export diversification was also a key initiative undertaken by Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Manufacturing became a centre of attention and was given more priority over agriculture. Important manufacturing goods included rubber gloves, catheters, room air conditioners, semiconductors and Audio visual equipment. By the 1990s Malaysia had become the world’s largest exporter of semiconductors, an industry that dates back to the mid 70’s when many US and Japanese set up factories in Malaysia. At that time there was also a trend to produce more assembled products like cameras and VCRS from semiconductors in Malaysia.

Manufacturing industry gave a colossal boom to the Malaysian economy that resulted in historic growth rate. It averaged 8 percent between 1986 and 1999, one of the highest in the world. During that time, Malaysia grew from a developing country status to the world’s 13th largest economy. Malaysia’s rapid development was the result of good governance, skilled workforce, impressive infrastructure, good communication facilities and efficient bureaucracy.

However, Malaysian economy was severely hit during Asian financial crisis in 1997-98. Surprisingly, Malaysia didn’t seek IMF help like Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia. Instead, it tried to revive the economy through domestic policies such as lowering interest rates and government spending, reducing corporate and bank debts. Mahathir further encouraged Malaysians to “buy Malaysia”. He told the students studying abroad to come home, discouraged companies from hiring foreign workers and told rich families to send their foreign servants. He even urged the Malaysians not to eat one of their favourite snacks, curry puffs, because they were made of Australian beef. Mahathir also adopted isolationist and protectionist policies to protect Malaysian industry and relaxed some rules to help ailing companies stay afloat. This is how he coped with economic recession during Asian financial crisis.

Moreover, the concept of ‘Asian values’ was also popularized by Mahathir and Singaporean premier lee Kuan Yew. They were the key mouthpieces for this viewpoint. The idea of ‘Asian values’ became so popular that in late 1990s it became fashionable to explain Asia’s economic success and prosperity in terms of “Asian values “, a collection of attributes such as a belief in hard work, thriftiness, propensity to save, national pride, respect for the order and authority, coherence of a society, and commitments to common ideals, goals and values that place the common good ahead of the individual… Mahathir attributed Malaysia’s success to Asian values”.

To cap it all, Pakistan can learn a lot from Mahathir’s vision, as Imran Khan said, the Malaysian model of economic development that is based on good governance, zero tolerance on corruption, protectionism, privatization of non-profitable state-owned enterprises, propensity to save, enhancement of exports and reduction of imports, broadening tax net, avoiding IMF, accelerating the process of industrialization and last but not least promoting and religiously acting upon Asian values.

The writer is a lawyer based in Jafarabad Balochistan

Published in Daily Times, November 27^th 2018.