Mahathir, Great Malaysian Hero

As the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad is facing a lot of challenges. Crisis after crisis has rocked his government and even his leadership is at stake. But he never loses the battles. Ironically, he carries Malaysia through to the new era. No matter how strong the waves to drown him, he is still there. He shrewdly faces all the challenges. No matter how big the obstacles are, one way or the other, he always comes out with a very good solution. He is brave enough to confront his enemy and soft enough to deal with those who want a compromise. Malaysian politics in the past has been full of dramatic events. Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad keeps anticipating each of them in an unprecedented manner that sometimes never crosses our “bare mind.” Above all, I think, the challenge by (then) Minister of Trade and Industry Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, backed by former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Musa Hitam for the presidency of UMNO, was the most crucial one. Since then, Malaysian politics has never been the same. Political competition and conflict in an organised society arise over ‘position scarcity’ and ‘resource scarcity’ within an organised structure of rewards. Political scarcity occurs because no two people can occupy the same position at the same time in the reward structure. Nor can one individual occupy two different positions simultaneously with a few exceptions, of course. Only a small number of people can occupy these positions of great power, privilege and prestige. ISBN:9789839683004