In mid-2003, a combination of things or just something in Bangladesh reminded me of Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta of 1997-1998. Hence, I went down memory lane. In October 2023, Dhaka Tribune published my articles about Malaysia, Indonesia, and South Korea.
I wrote about how I experienced the Asian Economic Crisis, and its effect on each nation’s economic and political situation. Suharto was forced to resign as public protests finally ended his 32-year dictatorship. In South Korea, by a slim margin of only 1.6% votes, Kim Dae-Jung defeated the ruling party’s candidate to become the first person in opposition to win the presidential election. And Malaysia’s Mahathir held on to power but began losing his stellar leadership credentials.
On October 4, 2024, as I saw a photo of our Chief Advisor Yunus and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, I immediately thought, “It took so many decades, but ultimately both men were vindicated in the public eye and are now leaders of their nations.”
When I moved to KL in July 1997, PM Mahathir was widely admired for his visionary thinking and leadership style by every global leader and reputable organization. I too was impressed. We had already read a case-study on Mahathir and Malaysia in my Harvard Business School classroom.
However, by September 1998, Mahathir showed a different face. He fired and persecuted his own hand-picked Deputy PM Anwar Ibrahim. Though the charges were about Anwar's personal character, experts knew it was because Anwar’s “Reformasi” included pointing out some of the larger corruptions. His wing in the UMNO Youth group wanted to discuss “cronyism and nepotism” at the General Assembly.
Well, PM Mahathir did not care about international opinions and the judiciary found Anwar guilty of sodomy. Over the next decades, Malaysian economic growth increased, Anwar was jailed, and Malaysian corruption also increased. Mahathir’s family and friends along with many others of his party UMNO benefitted. Malaysia slipped in the ranks as a “model for economic growth” as press freedom and judiciary independence was curbed.
Anwar’s wife Wan Azizah led an opposition party for the years he was in jail, and also during his ban from public office. Once the ban was over, Anwar won a parliamentary seat in 2008 and became leader of the opposition. Mahathir poked fun at Anwar saying "He will make a good PM for Israel (a nation Malaysia did not recognize)."
In reality, Anwar was exactly the leader Malaysia needed. He kept pressing for independent judiciary, an end to the endemic corruption, economic liberalization, and freedom of press.
Mahathir’s successor prime ministers of UMNO got embroiled in corruption and they brought cases against Anwar and put him in jail again in 2015 again on personal character charges. I was living and working in Abu Dhabi during this time. As I saw the news, I thought, Anwar won’t be able to come back to political leadership again. Years passed by and I just looked at Malaysia as another Muslim nation which couldn’t get democracy right.
UMNO corruption got so bad even Mahathir criticized and left the party. He came out of retirement, formed a new party and had to join up in coalition with Wan Azizah’s party. At age 92 he became the oldest prime minister in the world in 2018. Wan Azizah was his Deputy PM and it was announced that Mahathir will petition the king to pardon and release Anwar -- and if he became a member of parliament, Mahathir had to agree to make Anwar his successor.
Anwar got full royal pardon and soon won a seat in a by-election to become a MP in late-2018. However, in late-2019 PM Mahathir betrayed Anwar a second time and refused to hand over power to him. He created a complete chaos; he himself was forced to step down as prime minister; both Mahathir and Anwar had different opposition factions. In November 2022, Anwar was able to garner majority of parliament support to become prime minister.
If democracies fail, then you go back to democracy again to get the mandate of the people, credibility of the people, the government doesn't have any credibility left at this moment
I visited Malaysia in late-July 2023 to visit my Malaysian family and friends. Prime Minister Anwar was trying to clean-up the corruption. My Malaysian aunty said, “out of respect, Anwar still doesn’t want to directly name Mahathir. And out of some civility, the old man at age 97 himself should stop talking politics, and just retire or spend time with grandkids.”
Unfortunately, even when I was visiting, Mahathir couldn’t give up the limelight, and was on stage at a political gathering of Islamic party. Throughout his entire career, Mahathir used to criticize this same Islamic party as “backward” and they too called him a “kafir.”
In the 1980s-90s by their own criteria and dimension, right wing conservative think tanks like Brooking Institute, or centre right organizations like World Bank, and left leaning organizations like Oxfam all pretty much gave above average marks to PM Mahathir as the best democratic leader for economic and social advancement for a Muslim nation. Yet by November 2022, even his own constituents of the idyllic town of Langkawi, where for generations his family has lived, did not even cast enough votes for Mahathir. He actually lost the election deposit money.
In Malaysia the elections were administered well; people had plurality of political parties and candidates to choose from. This is why Anwar Ibrahim was able to become prime minister after 24 years.
All the readers had front row seats and knew well how Dr Yunus had been persecuted by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. In December 2010, a Norwegian government investigation cleared Grameen Bank and Dr Yunus of fund misappropriation. Then came the case against Grameen Danone in January 2011 for food adulteration. Then the government proceeded to remove Dr Yunus from Grameen Bank in March 2011 -- a topic that brought much negative international attention to Bangladesh.
As of early August 2024, Dr Yunus faced 174 lawsuits in Bangladesh, 172 of which were civil cases. Allegations included labour law violations, corruption, and money laundering. Along with the cases, Sheikh Hasina pronounced taunts and insults at him on a regular basis. Many of our assessments over the key reason for this legal harassment came to be because he launched a political party in early 2007 -- and though he later closed down the party -- she still saw him as a political threat.
Over the decades, I periodically paid my respects to Dr Yunus; my daughters both did internships at Yunus Centre; I attended the Social Business Day conference events and gained much insights from these. The last time I met him was in August 2023 at his office in Mirpur, and he graciously said I should feel free to spend time with the various teams. I remember thinking, how does he keep so optimistic when the most powerful person in the country has made him enemy number one? Another concurrent thought was, how very sad that he is not valued for his incredible insights and leadership.
Bangladeshi people were denied the right to free elections since the dismantling of the caretaker government system in 2011. Without this valuable mechanism, citizens were unable to convey their opinions about who should rule the nation. During the Anti-Discriminatory Student Movement of July 2024, we all saw in horror how students, young children and unarmed civilians were killed or maimed in the most inhumane manner by the autocratic prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Dr Yunus was in Paris for the Olympic Games and gave an interview around July 25, in which he stated, “If democracies fail, then you go back to democracy again to get the mandate of the people, credibility of the people, the government doesn't have any credibility left at this moment.”
When the students, joined by the general public, prevailed, the dictator resigned and fled on August 5. The students chose Dr Yunus to head the interim government. The last case against him was cleared on August 11, a few days after he took the oath of office. Today we see Anwar Ibrahim and Dr Yunus as head of their respective countries, both men suffered various obstacles which could have easily demoralized them, detracted them from their goal of public service.
Lubna Kabir has over 25 years of experience leading US and international projects in first line of defense risk management, integrated internal audit, strategy, and financial analysis.
