SOME AFTER THOUGHTS ON MR LEE KUAN YEW’S RECENTVISIT TO MALAYSIA

We believe that the remarks made by Tun Mahathir on Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s eight day visit to Malaysia recently may not go well with some people here, although there are others who cheered him for such remarks.

The Tun is well known for his frankness and will call a spade a spade. Although he has left the political scene some years now and was relatively quiet after he left UMNO, he has become active again after rejoining UMNO, getting a lot of publicity both by the main stream mass and electronic media. As a result there is now emerging a pervasive feeling of sort among the public that he is well on the way to becoming very much in the mainstream of the administration and hence indirectly involved in the running of the affairs of the country again.

Such feelings prevail following his comments on current issues and occasional sarcastic remarks (sarcasm is also his trait) at the present leadership and administration. His influence is further strengthened by the fact that the Tun still retains key positions, albeit in advisory capacity in Petronas and Proton.

He has not relinquished his positions including that of the Prime Minister’s Leadership Foundation, which he should under the new Prime Minister.

He should know when his presence is no longer relevant and should not expect the Prime Minister to tell him to do so.

We all appreciate what the Tun had done for this country during his long tenure as Prime Minister, just like what the people of Indonesia did for President Suharto at one time except towards the end of his political career. We believe the Tun means well whenever his views are sought. Indeed he had been very generous with his ideas. Be that as it may we still believe that as an ex Prime Minister his proper role should be more of an elder Statesman and should not in any way try to assume or behave as if one is still at the helm or captain of the ship. To those people who had been closely watching him since 1981 when he assumed the Premiership of the country, they say we may be entering Mahathir II era.

Most if not all ex leaders of countries in the world once “retired” usually do so in the true sprit of the word. Our first Prime Minister YTM Tunku Abdul Rahman did that after he left the Government and so was our third Prime Minister, Tun Hussein Onn. And most recent our Fifth Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. In his case he even openly declared that once he leaves the Government he will not interfere nor give out any comment on the government and its leadership. Actually this is what should happen to leaders when they were no longer in power. They just leave the scene and give way to the new generation of leaders to manage the country after them. The only exception are those leaders who were ousted by the people or forced out by their own political parties.

We like Singapore and Indonesia have had leaders who remained in power for a long time, at least two decades or more. We hope such a phenomena will not happen again in our country and we believe our neighbors too will wish for the same whereby leaders will not remain too long in power because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.