Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was born in 1925, prime minister of Malaysia. Mahathir Bin Mohamad has significantly shaped his country's political landscape while also serving as an unofficial spokesman for the so-called Third World. Throughout his career, Mahathir has been an outspoken critic of the industrialized nations' foreign policies directed at developing nations, while espousing the virtue of Asian morals.

Mahathir was born in Alor Setar, capital of the state of Kedah in northern Malaysia. The youngest of nine children, he grew up in a stable, financially secure family, and his father held a prestigious position as schoolmaster of an English language school. He studied medicine, but his passion was politics. He joined the dominant United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party and aligned himself with the majorityMalay population's needs. His book The Malay Dilemma, published in Singapore in 1970, which criticized the then-current Malay government, promoted a strident Malay nationalism and articulated his ideological beliefs. In the Malay Dilemma, Mahathir asserted that Malays were the indigenous people of Malaysia and demanded a policy of affirmative action to elevate their economic status to a level equal with the Chinese-Malaysians. At the same time, Mahathir also criticized certain Malay cultural traits and presented a theory steeped in Social Darwinism to explain the Malays' economic backwardness. Mahathir's open letter to Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman in 1969 led to his expulsion from UMNO, but by 1972 he was reinstated.

After 1972, Mahathir's political star rose rapidly. Tun Abdul Razak, the second prime minister, appointed him to a cabinet position in 1974, and he became deputy prime minister in 1976 under the third prime minister, Hussein Onn. By 1981, Mahathir had himself become prime minister. During the 1980s, Mahathir consolidated his power and became more authoritarian by successfully staving off political opponents through arrests and detention. He also eliminated the supreme court as a source of opposition, first by altering the constitution to weaken the court's power of review and then by forcing the resignation of several high-ranking members. In the 1990s, Mahathir promoted his economic plan, The Way Forward or Vision 2020, which proclaims that Malaysia will rank as a fully developed nation by the year 2020. Mahathir's Vision proposed a difficult economic growth rate that Malaysia has not been able to maintain. Nevertheless, Malaysia has prospered under Mahathir and the country's economic prospects remain solid.