Mahathir Still So Much To Do So Little Time

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Dr Mahathir Mohamad.PETALING JAYA: Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he is working three times the rate he was working when he was first PM in 1981 but still has no time to deal with all the problems
“I work from morning until night. Even then, I cannot finish my work,” he said in an interview with the Focus Malaysia business weekly
“A lot of letters have not been read by me, not to say even answered. I can’t read these letters, and they are piled up there on my table
“People come and see me and put on my table a lot of their problems, asking me to solve their problems
“I try to solve, but sometimes after they put their request on my table, I forget because I have other things to do. So this is not an easy task,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with Focus Malaysia
“And I am not young any more. In 1981, I was 56 years old. At a time when other people retire, I began my work
“Now I am 93 years old. I think by 93, you are no longer functional, but I still feel capable, so much so that the Pakatan Harapan coalition put their trust in me
“And although I was once their enemy, ‘the dictator’, they chose me. I couldn’t choose myself. And when they were in the opposition parties, they never liked me. So I was surprised when I was chosen
“But now I have made a promise that I will step down. But, in the meantime, I have to deliver and I have so short a time trying to compress 10 years of work into two or three years,” he said
Mahathir said while people seem to take things easy, he was in a hurry because “I realise I don’t have much time to do the things that I feel need to be done in this country”
“So, I will try to do my best as long as I am still the prime minister. If I am asked to leave, I’ll leave, because no specific date was given
“They have said that I am the interim and that somebody will take over. I suppose that may be long before the next election.”Asked whether his successor would undo his legacy, he said “you should just serve the government and not think about how people will remember you”
“Even if they do not remember, I would be happy because eventually we are all going to die anyway. What does it matter whether people will look up to you or not
“But I hope bad things won’t happen. When you have gone, something may go wrong, but you cannot be thinking about that and I think it’s up to the future generation to ensure they get a good government.”Mahathir also spoke about the “major problem” of having inexperienced people in his government
“If I go around discharging and replacing them, it is not going to help. I have to try and, well, work with them so that they acquire experience and believe me, some of them have done quite well

“But, of course, people have this impression that they are no good, that they are new.” - FMT

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