Mahathir Mohamad (Reuters)

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad returned to power last May, about 15 years after stepping down as prime minister in 2003. The 93-year-old leader said he was trying to make Malaysia an “Asian tiger” again. Mahathir, a medical doctor by training, invited a group of Indonesian journalists, including The Jakarta Post’s Ary Hermawan, to his office for an interview in Putrajaya on Tuesday. The following are excerpts from the interview.

Question: What is the state of relations between Indonesia and Malaysia?

Answer: It is time for Indonesia and Malaysia to know about each other more. Indonesia needs to know about the situation in Malaysia and we in Malaysia need to know the situation in Indonesia.

Historically, Malaysia could have been part of Indonesia, but […] we were colonized by the British and Indonesians by the Dutch. We still see Indonesia as our brother, our big brother, and we want to build a strong relationship with Indonesia. Yes, we have issues. […] But those are small issues. If there is a rally involving 1,000 people, that’s only a small part of a 260 million population; and those 260 million people are not the same as those who demonstrated.

Are you going to hand power to Anwar Ibrahim?

The party that nominated me as prime minister was the party that used to hurl harsh words at me, calling me maha zalim (authoritarian) and maha Firaun (the great Pharaoh), etc. but they accepted me as their leader. But I am not going to be prime minister for long. I am now more than 90 years old. We have agreed that Anwar Ibrahim will be my successor and I can work with him. I think that sometime before the 15th election I will relinquish my power. This is a promise that I will keep. Even though there are different opinions out there, those are other people’s opinions. I will keep my word. I will step down.

When is that?

I need two-and-a-half to three years to fix the prevailing problems — the huge external debt, the broken government machinery. It is not easy to clean the government’s machinery as we have people who are still loyal to the old government and sometimes we cannot trust them. Those who still side with the old party we have to get rid of them.

Will a woman ever lead Malaysia?

It’s very possible. But she must have a strong personality. […] we don’t have a candidate for it yet.

What do you think about the consolidation of ASEAN member states today?

ASEAN was established by the old generation such as Pak Harto [Soeharto] and Lee Kuan Yew. But now that we have implemented democracy, governments have changed. Relations between leaders are not the same as they used to be. In the past, Pak Harto and I always met up. We talked about our respective goals and ways. Now we can have a meeting with a leader of a country and then later [we meet] with another leader of that country.

From time to time, we could always try to improve relations but it will not be as good as it used to be. Therefore, ASEAN becomes less strong, less united and the understanding between leaders is also not as good. I am sure if we could have a slightly longer-serving leader then we could boost relations. There are many things that we could do.

Indonesia will hold elections this April. What is your hope for Indonesia?

We do not interfere with the domestic affairs of our neighbors or any other nations. We will forge relations with anyone elected. We will not say that we do not like one candidate. If he is elected, then it will cause troubles. So we are just going to watch.

At your age, how do you work with millennials?

Working with younger leaders is not a hard thing to do. I became prime minister when I was almost 60 years old. But my ministers were young people. I have always mingled with the younger generation. It is just that today the gap is just too far. Haha. But there is no problem. I met with the leader of Austria [Sebastian Kurz] and we talked freely without taking age seriously.

What do you think about the fate of Malay Islam today?

We have an Islamic party here but even if it calls itself an Islamic party we do not believe that it is fighting for Islam. They are a political party that uses Islam to get political support. So we fight them not by calling them stagnant or outdated, but we use religious arguments to criticize them.

Their chance to become a ruling party [at the national level] is nil because we are a multiracial and multireligious country. So they need to get the support of all groups, all religions if they want to become the government. But at the state level such as Kelantan, where the population is 90 percent Malay, they have won several times.

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