At the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur on a recent Friday, a crowd of men angled for an close-up look at the silver-haired figure in a gray suit exiting an elevator.
They held their camera phones up high and perched on stairs to catch a better glimpse. Those who could get close enough stepped forward to kiss the man’s hand. A worshiper put his hand to his head in a salute.
The man commanding all this attention was Mahathir Mohamad, 99, who served more years as prime minister than anyone in Malaysia’s history.
Starting in 1981, he governed uninterrupted for 22 years, engineering an economic transformation that reshaped the country from one dependent on tin, rubber and palm oil into one of the world’s major high-tech exporters.
Then in 2018, after a 15-year break, he was elected again at 92, setting a record as the world’s oldest prime minister.
But he remains a deeply polarizing figure, reviled by many for clamping down hard on his political opponents — most notoriously, Anwar Ibrahim, the current prime minister — and for his incendiary comments about Jews and race in Malaysia.
Western governments, including the United States, condemned what happened to Mr. Anwar when his mentor led the country. Mr. Mahathir fired Mr. Anwar as deputy prime minister in 1998, and his No. 2 was imprisoned for years on corruption and sodomy charges, severely beaten and widely considered a political prisoner.
And for all the praise he won for Malaysia’s economic transformation, Mr. Mahathir was also subject to much less-flattering assessments. He has been called Machiavellian, a dictator, an autocrat and an antisemite.
As he approaches his 100th birthday in July, Mr. Mahathir assessed his own legacy in a wide-ranging, hourlong interview in mid-February in his office in Putrajaya, the administrative capital that he built about an hour’s drive from downtown Kuala Lumpur.
When asked about the dictator label, Mr. Mahathir looked amused.
“Do strongmen ever resign?” he responded. “If you can find a dictator who resigns, then you can call me a dictator.”
(Political historians might counter that there are examples, including Augusto Pinochet in Chile.)
And what about the charges that he is antisemitic?
In past statements, he has called Jews “hook nosed,” said they “rule the world by proxy” and blamed them for the Asian financial crisis in 1997 — singling out George Soros, the financier, who, Mr. Mahathir pointed out, is Jewish.
In the interview, Mr. Mahathir said he had “no problem” with Jews and pitied them for the vast suffering of the Holocaust. But he said he became appalled when the formation of Israel resulted in the expulsion and killing of Palestinians.
“When I criticize the Jews for doing wrong things, bad things and oppressive things, they label me as an anti-Jew,” he said. “I’m pointing out that what they were doing is wrong; that is all.”
Some analysts have characterized such offensive tirades, like blaming Jews collectively for what he sees as the failings of Israeli state policy, as a way for him to pander to a domestic audience that has long supported the Palestinian cause. Others suggested they were a way for Mr. Mahathir, who has long called for Islam to coexist with the modern world, to bolster his own religious bona fides.
During his first tenure as prime minister, Mr. Mahathir made race the center of his and Malaysia’s politics. He championed the idea of Malay supremacy and gave lucrative business opportunities to select Malay businessmen, which critics called cronyism.
Still, he often hectored his fellow Malays, calling them lazy. During the interview, he made the same sort of sweeping statements that had been a characteristic of his time in office: “The Malays don’t work as hard as the other races,” he said, while noting that “the Chinese are very hard working, and they are very materialistic.”
Whatever his final legacy, Mr. Mahathir is determined to add to it.
Five years after stepping down in 2020 from his second stint as prime minister, he still wields influence and dominates headlines.
One obsession keeps him going.
“Before I die, for as much as I can function,” Mr. Mahathir said, “I would like to continue my work in trying to contribute to the growth of Malaysia.”
In front of him on his desk was a letter asking him to intervene in Malaysia’s current economic problems. Next to it was a clipboard with his latest essay in longhand for his blog. (It started: “Poor Ukraine.”) Beyond his right shoulder was the Formula One helmet that he received as a gift in September when he drove around a racetrack, clocking 96 miles an hour.
Every weekday, he is in the office by 8:30 a.m. and works for about nine hours, sometimes 12.
“Working is the best therapy for not being ill, that’s what he tells me,” said his wife, Dr. Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali, 98, to whom he has been married for close to seven decades. “He says: ‘If I rest at home, I’ll be wasting my time.’
Dr. Hasmah, who devoted her medical career to maternal and child health, described a husband who treated her as an equal. He sent her to lead diplomatic delegations when she was first lady, like a trip to Iraq to assess the effect of the United Nations’ economic sanctions on women and children. It resulted in a secret meeting with Saddam Hussein.
“There were so many times he believed in me,” she said.
Mr. Mahathir thinks a lot about aging and what it means for leadership. Old people should still contribute to politics, he said — but not all old people. Last year, he said that Joseph R. Biden Jr., whom he had initially backed for the U.S. presidency, should step down.
“Although he is younger than me, he looked and behaved like an old person,” Mr. Mahathir said during the interview.
Among his greatest regrets, Mr. Mahathir said, was his decision in 2003 to retire at 78 because he felt he would be too old to contest the next election.
During that first pause, he was never able to stay on the sidelines. He criticized two of his protégés for what he said were economic mismanagement and personal failings. But it was a quest to defeat one of them, Najib Razak, then prime minister, that gave rise to Mr. Mahathir’s remarkable second act in politics.
Sometime in 2014, Malaysians started visiting Mr. Mahathir’s office to vent about Mr. Najib’s mismanaging of a state investment fund, 1 Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, according to Endie Shazlie Akbar, Mr. Mahathir’s former press secretary.
“It was almost like people were going to Jimmy Carter to complain about Donald Trump,” Mr. Endie said.
Mr. Mahathir called on Mr. Najib to resign, attended nationwide demonstrations and decided, finally, that he not only had to come out of retirement, but also that he would team up with his longtime nemesis: Mr. Anwar.
Together, the odd couple won the election, and Mr. Mahathir was once again prime minister.
But the bonhomie lasted only two years, after which Mr. Mahathir’s political party defected from the winning coalition and he resigned as premier for the second time.
His feud with Mr. Anwar continues to reverberate today. The Malaysian government is considering a criminal investigation into Mr. Mahathir over a territorial settlement with Singapore, in which he withdrew Malaysia’s attempt to challenge a previous ruling on three islets. It has also asked Mr. Mahathir’s sons to disclose the sources of their wealth.
Mr. Mahathir said he had tried to reach out to Mr. Anwar but he “wants nothing to do with me.” He added: “He treats me like the opposition, the enemy almost.”
Some of Mr. Mahathir’s actions suggest he isn’t all that eager to make amends.
On a recent Friday, Mr. Mahathir met a group called the Malay Proclamation, which is made up of Malays concerned about the future of their race but considered by some analysts to be an anti-Anwar coalition.
Voters had a chance to render their own verdict on his legacy: In 2022, Mr. Mahathir lost his seat in Parliament after gaining a mere 7 percent of the vote.
James Chin, a professor of Asian studies at the University of Tasmania, said Mr. Mahathir’s latest coalition had been made up of extreme right-wing Malay parties that turned off many Malaysians.
“Mahathir will be remembered more for not bowing out gracefully,” said Ong Kian Ming, who was the deputy trade minister under Mr. Mahathir in his second stint.
Abdul Kadir Jasin, Mr. Mahathir’s former adviser, said he had long dreamed for his ex-boss to assume a Nelson Mandela-type role in retirement: a revered statesman who would share his wisdom with the world.
“Of course, it will not be fulfilled,” Mr. Kadir said of his wish. “He’s always said he doesn’t care how he’s remembered.”
“That’s Mahathir for you.”
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