Enmity between Mahathir and current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who was once jailed on sodomy charges considered by many to be a political conspiracy, continues today.
“I think his failures outweigh the positives,” Chin says.
Mahathir and then Australian prime minister Paul Keating at the APEC summit in 1994.Credit: Fairfax
Australians of a certain age may remember the kerfuffle during his first stretch when Paul Keating, the prime minister of the day, famously called him a “recalcitrant” for not attending the first APEC summit in the US city of Seattle in 1993.
Keating walked it back, saying the remark wasn’t planned to offend. Mahathir did turn up the following year in Indonesia.
Ten years after Seattle, Kevin Rudd, then shadow foreign affairs minister, used the term again (adding the word “utterly”) to criticise Mahathir’s “determination to turn himself into a minor folk hero in the militant Islamic world and his unabated campaign of hostility towards the west in general, and Australia in particular”.
Many things about Australia, in fact, irked Mahathir.
Mahathir Mohamad in Putrajaya, Malaysia, in 2023.Credit: Bloomberg
“He didn’t like Australia claiming to be part of Asia,” Chin says. “He always saw Australia as a white man’s outpost, and he was especially annoyed when Australia started preaching about human rights.
“One of the things he was very successful in selling to the rest of South-East Asia was that Australia was the deputy sheriff to America … that Australia was always doing the bidding of the Americans.”
At 100, Mahathir remains outspoken and embroiled in controversy, though his influence has waned. In the 2022 elections, the new party he formed did not win a single seat.
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“Yet his role in making Malaysia remains deeply embedded, so much so it may take another few generations to move beyond his legacy,” says veteran political analyst Bridget Welsh.
Mahathir’s office says he cannot dismiss Thursday’s milestone, “though probably he would like to”. They say he is greeted on the streets of Kuala Lumpur by singing celebrations and has been presented at least seven cakes since Monday.
The centenarian has long outlived giant South-East Asian contemporaries – Indonesia’s Suharto, the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos and Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew.
Is there more politics left in Mahathir’s considerable tank?
“People have asked him directly to his face, ‘if Anwar is overthrown, are you coming back as a prime minister for a third time?’” Chin says.
“I would have thought you’d say no, but he never gives a direct answer.”
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