Quora Answer: As a Singaporean, Would You Like Mahathir bin Mohamad to be PM of Singapore?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Mahathir bin Mohamad asked Singaporeans to change the government of the day like Malaysians did.  Would you like Mahathir to be PM of Singapore?”

I am not the biggest fan of the PAP.  In fact, I have a severe disapproval for certain Members of Parliament, and I think they are useless.  But I would still take the worst among them to Mahathir bin Mohamad.  Mahathir is a Malay-exceptionalist, an anti-Jew, an avowed racist, and a man who lacks integrity and credibility.  He is perfect for Malaysia, where he advocates for the apartheid system of elevating the bumiputera over others.

We know that Mahathir has credibility issues. He picked Anwar bin Ibrahim, and then Abdullah bin Ahmad Badawi, and then Mohammad Najib bin Abdul Razak.  He is either a terrible judge of character, or an exceptional mentor, because they all learned corruption, crony capitalism, and kleptocracy from him.  He appointed Najib to the Defence Ministry.  He set the precedent of the Prime Minister being the Finance Minister.  He founded JAKIM and gave it a billion-ringgit budget.  He was the patron of Perkasa, the Malay “Ku Klux Klan”.  He essentially came back to power on a wave of indignation to fix a crisis he created.  And his playbook is the same as before; blunt diplomacy, unilateralism, rabid nationalism, and threats.  He fed the racism and the hardline Islamism.

If Mahathir were our Prime Minister, we would cease to be the meritocracy that we are, and lose our competitive advantage.  We would cease to be a united, multicultural state, and would fall back into division and poverty.  He would fitter away our wealth on vanity projects, and cost us our status as a financial hub by trying to blackmail financial institutions into funding his Malay-centric agenda.  The fact that he would suggest that Singapore should replace its government because he does not like them is itself mischievous and disrespectful.  I have no respect for Mahathir, and I would not trust anything he says even if that contract is signed in the blood of an upright UMNO politician, a mythical creature.