Following the historical election last year, Tun Mahathir Mohamad who became the country’s prime minister for the second time, has been listed among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people for 2019.
In his profile summary, Sarawak Report founder and editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown who broke the story of the 1MDB scandal described the 93-year-old leader as a “formidable warhorse” who “dazzled during a grueling campaign.”
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad helped re-establish "democracy in a country that almost teetered into totalitarianism" #TIME100 https://t.co/IzcyxcIgmJ
— TIME (@TIME) April 18, 2019
Rewcastle revealed that Dr Mahathir’s campaign not only gathered vast crowds, but “his reliance on core values united electoral groups, and his age inspired trust in a grand man of politics.”
“You don’t have to be young to fight the power. Take Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, the former Malaysian Prime Minister who came out of retirement last year to lambaste his successor Najib Razak, who is accused of embezzling millions of dollars from the country’s 1MDB development fund. Venting moral outrage, the colloquially called Dr. M swept back to power in a landslide election victory in May 2018 at age 92,” she wrote.
“Now 93, Mohamad has committed to hand over power to the former leader of the opposition, Anwar Ibrahim, 71, whom he released from jail days after his victory. For Malaysia, the episode has re-established democracy in a country that almost teetered into totalitarianism.”
Dr Mahathir is listed in the Leaders segment of Time’s 100 most influential people this year. Among other leaders in the list include United States House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Chinese president Xi Jinping.
