Mahathir also greatly expanded educational opportunities for Malay women – by 2000 half of all university students were women.

Mahathir bin Mahamad was chosen, an advocate of bumiputra who also tried to benefit the other ethnic communities.

Mahathir Mohamad promoted the concept on the basis of its economic merits as a stable unit of account and also as a political symbol to create greater unity between Islamic nations.

Mahathir also oversaw the establishment of the car manufacturer Proton as a joint venture between the Malaysian government and Mitsubishi.

In 2003 Mahathir spoke to the Non-Aligned Movement in Kuala Lumpur, and as part of his speech, said: If innocent people who died in the attack on Afghanistan and those who have been dying from lack of food and medical care in Iraq are considered collaterals, are the 3, 000 who died in New York, and the 200 in Bali also just collaterals whose deaths are necessary for operations to succeed?

Mahathir, along with other Malaysian politicians ( and many other Asian leaders ) also heavily criticized Keating's successor, John Howard, whom he believed had encouraged Pauline Hanson, whose views were widely perceived in Asia ( and Australia ) as racist.

Mahathir also made remarks to the effect that John Howard was trying to be America's ' Deputy Sheriff ' in the Pacific region.

He also arrested several public figures from the Mahathir era for corruption, a move which was widely applauded by the public.

Mahathir also alleged that Abdullah Badawi had originally offered to permit the Republic of Singapore Air Force to fly over Malaysian territory and sell sand to Singapore in exchange for an agreement on constructing the bridge.

Mahathir also added that the media refused to publish Mahathir's comments.

Tun Razak also readmitted to the party " ultras " who had been expelled, like Mahathir and Musa Hitam.

UMNO Malaysia was supported mainly by members of the Team B faction from UMNO, but Mahathir was also invited to join the party leadership.

After Mahathir stepped down as President of UMNO in 2003, he was replaced by his designated successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who by virtue of his new position also became Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamed and Malaysian Chinese Association president Chua Soi Lek have also alleged that DAP members and policies are " racist ".

However, Mahathir also dissects the multiple failings of his own race, and the book was intended as a solution leading away from violence towards a harmonious, integrated Malaysia ( albeit one where political and economic power is firmly concentrated in the hands of the Malays ).

Both former Prime Ministers Mahathir bin Mohamad and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi also held the title Dato ' Sri during their administrations.

It is also noted that then Prime Ministers of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei and Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, king of Saudi Arabia were conferred honorary doctorates by IIUM.

It is also the birthplace of two Prime Ministers, YTM Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's first Prime Minister, and Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, Malaysia's fourth Prime Minister.

Tun Dr. Mahathir also drove a prototype Proton Saga fitted with a 4G63 2. 0L engine and a Jalur Gemilang across the Penang Bridge and to Penang Airport during the opening ceremony of the bridge on 14 September 1985.

Razaleigh had the personal support of former UMNO prime ministers Tunku Abdul Rahman and Hussein Onn, both of whom had also fallen out with Mahathir.

Fernandes was also instrumental in lobbying the then-Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in mid-2003, to propose the idea of open skies agreements with neighbouring Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore.

Dr Mahathir and King Hasan II also initiated programmes and activities towards the currency ’ s implementation, the latter as a means to correct Zakat.

Under Abdullah, UMNO has undergone a number of crises, most notably in 2006 when Mahathir began actively confronting Abdullah about his policies, and campaigned for a position as a delegate to the national UMNO assembly so he could earn the right to speak at the floor of the assembly.

This policy shift was continued and strengthened by Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, who pursued a regionalist and pro-South policy with at times strident anti-Western rhetoric.

On 4 May 1988, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad announced the government ’ s decision on a policy of privatisation.

The second arm of government policy, driven mainly by Mahathir first as Education Minister and then as Prime Minister, was the transfer of economic power to the Malays.

In 2005, Mahathir stated that " I believe that the country should have a strong government but not too strong.

In practice however, more power is vested in the executive branch of government than in the legislative, and the judiciary has been weakened by sustained attacks by the government during the Mahathir era.

Former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his predecessor Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad have both suggested that Malays should depend less on government assistance.

Many observers believe full abolition of bumiputra privileges is unlikely, especially in view of the constitutional issues involved, although successive administrations since Mahathir have attempted to reform the system of government aid for the bumiputra.

After he graduated, Mahathir worked as a doctor in government service before marrying in 1956.

Elected to parliament in a volatile political period, Mahathir, as a government backbencher, launched himself into the main conflict of the day: the future of Singapore, with its large and economically powerful ethnic Chinese population, as a state of Malaysia.

The book argued that a balance had to be achieved between enough government support for Malays so that their economic interests would not be dominated by the Chinese, and exposing Malays to sufficient competition to ensure that over time, Malays would lose what Mahathir saw as the characteristics of avoiding hard work and failing to " appreciate the real value of money and property ".

Mahathir exercised caution in his first two years in power, consolidating his leadership of UMNO and, with victory in the 1982 general election, the government.

Mahathir tried to pre-emptively limit the power that the new Agong could wield over his government, introducing to parliament amendments to the Constitution to deem the Agong to assent to any bill that had not been assented within 15 days of passage by parliament.

When the public became aware of the impasse, and the Sultans refused to compromise with the government, Mahathir took the streets to demonstrate public support for his position in mass rallies.

PAS, which had in the 1970s joined UMNO in government, responded to the resurgence by taking an increasingly strident Islamist stand under the leadership of the man who in 1969 had defeated Mahathir for his parliamentary seat, Yusof Rawa.

To deliver the project, Mahathir and the local Barisan Nasional government selected a head contractor close to Mahathir without an open tendering process.

PAS won big in 1999, due in significant part to Malay anger over the treatment of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim by then – Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed and other officials of the national government.

However, the coalition government headed by Mahathir at the time held more than two-thirds of the seats in parliament.

He had accused Abdullah Badawi of reneging on promises he made to Mahathir related to government policies, and in his strongest criticism thus far, said in June 2006 that Abdullah Badawi had betrayed his trust.

However, Mahathir promptly purged the government cabinet of all Team B members, and launched similar reshuffles in state and local governments.

During the Mahathir administration in 1987, several DAP leaders, including Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang, were detained by the government without trial during Operation Lalang, under the accusation of being a national security threat.

Mahathir was readmitted to UMNO in 1972 and became Prime Minister of Malaysia in 1981, and in time most of the policies suggested in the book were indeed adopted by the Malaysian government, most notably in the Malaysian New Economic Policy.

Shortly before his election as the Yang-Di Pertuan Agong in 1983, a spate of reports alleging Sultan Iskandar's intention to launch a coup d ' état by launching a state of emergency to overthrow the government circulated within political circles, which reached Mahathir himself.