[Setelah hampir 20 tahun berkuasa apakah yang telah diwarisi oleh Mahathir kepada Malaysia sehingga disuruh bersyukur dan taat sebulat hati padanya pula? Apakah kesenangan atau hutang berbilion yang kini sedang disangga oleh dana awam dan wang simpanan hari tua kita? Ekonomi negara sudah semakin tenat walaupun pelbagai formula sudah dicanangkan pada tahun ini sahaja. Pergantungan kepada sektor elektronik dan kawalan matawang menyebabkan ekspot Malaysia tergugat oleh kelembapan Amerika sehingga beribu-ribu dibuang kerja di kilang. Dan kebengapan kerajaan memasarkan barang komoditi menyebabkan ribuan peladang seperti penanam kelapa sawit menderita. Tahun ini analis meramalkan KDNK Malaysia cuma sekitar 2% sahaja, berbanding 8.3% pada tahun lepas. Rezab asing dalam negara pula tinggal 3 bulan lebih sahaja akibat 'terlalu pandai'nya Mahathir dan pasukan ekonominya. Apakah semua musibah ini salah rakyat belaka?

Seteruk-teruk demo reformasi pun tiada mangsa yang tercedera kritikal. Tetapi polis telah melakukan keganasan yang melampaui garis undang-undang kerana mengejar dan mendera rakyat yang sedang bersurai. Rakyat cuma datang untuk bersuara kerana parlimen sudah tidak berfungsi kerana speaker lebih berkuasa. Pilihanraya sudah kotor kerana pengundi hantu ada dimana-mana. Mahathir sepatutnya bersyukur rakyat Malaysia masih sabar walaupun teruk ditipu dan didera. Malangnya dia semakin ganas dan tidak bertamaddun kerana menangkap orang tanpa bukti dan tanpa bicara. Ini bermakna masalah sebenar bukannya rakyat - tetapi pemimpin yang berkuasa. Jika rakyat bersalah mengapa tidak dihadapkan sahaja ke mahkamah untuk diadili sewajarnya.

Mahathir sebenarnya amat lemah dan begitu takut kebangkitan rakyat yang sudah semakin membencinya sejak Anwar diaibkan. Mencemuh dan mencela aktivis reformasi tiada makna kerana tidak dibicara seadilnya. Mahathir cuma mengundang lebih kebencian dengan ucapan yang langsung tidak kena.

Sekarang dia sudah merosakkan lagi sokongan kaum Cina kepada BN pula kerana menyokong secara terbuka pengambil-alihan Nanyang. Alangkah dungunya Umno bertepuk sorak menyanjunginya sedangkan dia semakin memupuskan lagi nyawa Umno. Jika ekonomi terus menjunam yang sakit nanti semua - termasuk mereka yang asyik menangguk dan mengampu sekian lama. Apakah itupun mahu disalahkan lagi kepada orang lain juga? - Editor]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/ asia-pacific/newsid_1405000/1405286.stm

Mahathir lashes out

By Simon Ingram in Kuala Lumpur

An emotional Dr Mahathir Mohamed brought down the curtain on the three-day general assembly of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (Umno) on Saturday evening.

The 76-year old party leader fought back tears as he recited a poem appealing to ethnic Malays to stand united.

The 2,000 Umno delegates stood and applauded, as they have done after each of Dr Mahathir's appearances in the 20 years since he assumed the party leadership.

The gathering had expected to hear a hint of Dr Mahathir's plans for retirement, and of his strategy to galvanise a party whose grip on power is under greater threat than for many years.

Instead, the conference was treated to a tongue-lashing of vitriolic proportions.

'Malays greedy'

The ethnic Malay community had become servile, greedy and ungrateful, the prime minister declared.

By failing to give stronger backing to the party, which had lavished privileges and progress on them, the Malays were playing into the hands of the Islamist opposition party, PAS, a group he labelled "liars and traitors."

Dr Mahathir sneered at the "reformasi" or reform movement inspired by his one-time heir apparent, Anwar Ibrahim, who currently serving a 15-year jail term for corruption and s###my.

"Reformasi", he told his audience, was nothing but "mob-rule, a lawless rule by street mobs".

Those who advocated it were "idiots".

Foreigners blamed

Other old enemies were lambasted as well. Foreigners, the western media, and the IMF were all blamed for being - in one way or another - the authors of Malaysia's woes.

"What they wish to see, is that our country experiences misfortunes," Dr Mahathir railed.

"They wish us to become their puppet client state."

Australia was singled out for special treatment, a riposte to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's recent meeting in Canberra with a visiting PAS leader.

The prime minister sneered about "a brown man, running away to white men to solve his problems", and, in his closing speech, he gave a mocking parody of an Australian English accent, much to the amusement of his audience.

No self-criticism

In this angry torrent of words, delivered in two sessions lasting over three and a half hours in total, there was barely a trace of self-criticism.

Instead Dr Mahathir told Malays that they should "count their blessings", and rally behind the government.

And - more worrying to some observers - beyond a now familiar appeal for solidarity, discipline and an end to corruption, there was no prescription for the looming challenges to Umno's supremacy.

At the last general election in 1999, the party lost 22 seats to the opposition, and only retained its dominant status within the ruling National Front thanks to the votes of the minority ethnic Chinese population.

Analysts say younger Malays will have been further alienated by the tone of Dr Mahathir's latest onslaught.

Chinese newspapers

Moreover, the pro-government Malaysian Chinese Association is convulsed by a dispute over the leadership's highly unpopular decision by buy a controlling stake in two Mandarin-language newspapers that had been critical of government policy.

The row has damaged Dr Mahathir after he admitted giving the green light for the deal to go ahead.

Then there is the economy. After years of rapid growth, Malaysia's export-driven success story is heading for trouble.

Exports of electronic components to the United States have been hit hard by the economic slowdown there.

Analysts predict GDP growth as low as 2% this year, compared to 8.3% in 2000.

A measure of the prime minister's concern came in April with the recent arrest of 10 opposition leaders under the draconian Internal Security Act.

Six senior figures in the National Justice Party have since been ordered detained without trial for two years - a decision that provoked sharp criticism from the United States and the European parliament.

In private, some Umno members are saying that Dr Mahathir's departure would offer the party its best chance of winning back its popular appeal.

As one analyst put it: "Dr Mahathir has become the albatross around Umno's neck."

But as the echoes of the prime minister's standing ovation faded last night, the prospects of his early departure looked fainter than ever.