IT will be 2020 in a few days! This is, of course, usually the time when we reminisce and, yes, maybe indulge in a bit of wistfulness.
We are supposed to have reached the target set by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his earlier stint as prime minister to be a developed country by 2020, not just hovering on the cusp of such a status.
When Dr Mahathir launched his Vision 2020 for the country back in 1991 — midway through the longest stint of any Malaysian leader — his dynamism and single-mindedness of purpose were already well-established. Such was the infectiousness of the “Malaysia Boleh” spirit he engendered that I distinctly recall a time when the late Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad confidently predicted in one of his New Sunday Times columns that the prime minister would only die in office, such being his unassailable perch at the top.
Abdullah, or Dollah Kok Lanas as he was known among friends and political circles, could not be in a sycophantic cast when he wrote thus. It rather spoke of how Dr Mahathir had marshalled all under his sway to achieve what he had set out to do, despite some early and then fairly regular occasional political hiccups.
The Asian financial crisis rudely intervened towards the end of that heady decade and with it, a tumultuous leadership crisis. My own personal hunch had been that without the major disruption of the financial crisis, Dr Mahathir would have gladly retired in some glory some time around the turn of the century.
Instead, the prime minister persevered and then surprised even his closest ministers to unexpectedly announce in 2003, as the country and his own political fortunes recovered, that indeed he was retiring. Stop while the going looks good seems to be his life-long personal philosophy, even when it comes to his eating habits!
This is where it may be interesting to reflect on what might have been. What if Dr Mahathir had opted — as Abdullah predicted he would — to go on and on as prime minister? There would presumably be none of the hero-to-zero chapter of the Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi premiership, nor that of Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the whiplash we are presently experiencing.
None of the political upheavals of 2018, us seeing the back of Umno and Barisan Nasional and the birth of New Malaysia too? Is all this to our collective greater good? What is perhaps safer to assume is that there would have been no New Malaysia had Dr Mahathir not decided to pick up the political cudgels yet again.
Safe also to bet, one supposes, that in the light of the widespread antipathies today over the perceived failure of Pakatan Harapan to live up to some political promises once in office — although the persona of Dr Mahathir is familiar to us — large numbers of Malaysians have still not quite grasped the essence of the Mahathir phenomenon.
We all individually ascribe to our fourth and now seventh prime minister our subjective hopes, fears and, let’s face it, our personal biases and prejudices, as the case may be. In a democracy like ours, however imperfect, his success, failure and effectiveness will be as much a reflection of how he is perceived.
Leadership matters, more so in a fractured, multiracial polity like ours. Particularly now when Dr Mahathir’s quite conscious effort at political institution-building through deliberate leadership transitions had failed him (and us) so spectacularly.
Exercising political leadership is not much different from imparting good management practices. But still, there were clear limits even to Dr Mahathir’s past efforts to manage state affairs as the chief executive officer of Malaysia Incorporated.
Corporate leaders ultimately can fire those not on-side when all other efforts to rein in recalcitrant underlings fail. Political leaders, however, cannot simply fire troublesome political constituencies or wish them away. The only recourse is persuasion, co-option and building ever larger and steadier ships, the better to accommodate divergent viewpoints and interests.
Post-2018, Malaysians have tended, somewhat presumptuously and improbably, to see Dr Mahathir as a “changed” man, when in fact the same leader now presides over a “changed” country.
Our durable prime minister may be more accurately viewed as a reassuring constant and perhaps still the surest and safest pair of hands to steer the ship of state through a vastly transformed political landscape.
Tested leadership is sorely needed today to navigate such a landscape. Advanced democracies mistakenly assume they could comfortably coast along on institutional auto-pilot. They have now been proven wrong.
Malaysians cannot afford to assume such, especially now that Vision 2020 is postponed.
The writer views developments in the nation, the region and the wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times