Mahathir destroyed All Our Democratic Instituitions

Looking back at Mahathir's 22 years tenure at the helm of the nation, it is not difficult to comprehend why we lost so much money through looting by his family and his cronies.

His favourite money making trick was to launch mega projects and privatisation of govt companies. His many mega projects were fronts to dish out negotiated tenders to his children and cronies whereby sweet deals were quoted with price many times its actual value. The more projects he launched and the more expensive the projects, the higher and better the profits were accrued by the beneficiaries. And when his son's venture in the shipping business failed he unhesitatingly used a govt vehicle (MISC) to bail his son out.

Bank Bumiputra which was a govt owned bank gave millions of unsecured loans to Mahathir's cronies and in the end all of them ended up as non-performing loans(NPL). In the end Petronas oil money was used to bail out the bank. Similar bail out was later repeated with MAS, Bank Rakyat, Perwaja Steel, and countless other govt GLCs.

His lack of business acumen saw the country loss heavily when he tried to corner the tin market.It was conservatively estimated that his brief foray in the speculation of the tin market cost the nation loss of $20 billion.

There are still alot of Malaysians who are foolishly ignorant of Mahathir's woeful tenure. He was not only a corrupt dictator who would not brook any dissent but he was also a racist too. Many of the Instituitions which were created during his tenure had a racist overtone. MARA colleges (MRSM), UITM and BTN were all his creations. They all had one thing in common .They all catered for only one race and with the exception of MARA colleges which later opened its door to allow 10% non bumi entry, the rest all had a racist agenda.

In short, time and history will not judge Mahathir favourably. His 22 years tenure saw the crumbling of all the instituition which was once the pride of Asia. The judiciary, the Attorney-general Dept, the Police dept, MACC , the civil service and virtually every instituition which was the cornerstone of a democracy became subservient to the Executive. Not only did they lost their independence and became servants and slave to the Executive but they also lost whatever shred of integrity that they had.

It would not be wrong to credit Mahathir as the P.M who destroyed the very fabric of malaysian multi-cultural and democratic instituition which till today still bears the hallmarks of his imprints.