The story of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is interspersed with many stories of great successes and a number of serious failures. Nevertheless, overall he may well be remembered with pride by many as an illustrious son and a great prime minister of Malaysia.

Given the present political culture, the successes will shine in the public eye. But history will be the final judge of his 22-year tenure.

During this period, Mahathir succeeded in bringing about much development. Many mega- projects undertaken, mostly under him, have transformed and modernised much of the country beyond recognition.

Unfortunately, the development has emphasised material and physical aspects - the social and environmental aspects have not been given due attention.

Corruption, moral decline, major crimes and drug addiction have grown worse, while physical degradation has resulted in frequent incidents of flash floods as well as air and water pollution throughout the whole country.

Per capita income has increased impressively and incidence of poverty has reduced significantly, yet owing to immense concentration of wealth, socio-economic inequity has further widened, now even intra-ethnically. And socio-economic inequity results in unequal opportunities.

Indeed, this gap could have been effectively reduced if Mahathir had made doubly sure that more of the country's wealth was spent on solving many of the serious social problems faced by the lower and even the middle income groups, particularly in education, healthcare, housing and public transport.

Material affluence brought about by his pet projects for a select few has not been matched by the offer of greater democratic space for the majority.

Since he assumed power, Mahathir has become more authoritarian. He has been instrumental in causing the integrity and freedom of the judiciary, police and media to be undermined, especially following the sacking of his deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, in September 1998.

BN leaders say a lot about corruption, but clearly they are not serious about bringing to book the big culprits among their cronies.

'Don't expect change'

I remember Mahathir best as a strong, self-righteous and intelligent person, who is an expert in manipulating the state machinery to his political and personal advantage; in outfoxing his challengers by his many cunning ways; in wasting away the country's wealth to build impressive constructions that need not be economic or beneficial to the people; and for not practising in the county what he regularly preaches at international forums on democracy, freedom and level- field competition.

Some time after South African freedom fighter (and later president) Nelson Mandela was released from his long incarceration, and before South Africa's first general elections, a high powered ANC delegation visited Malaysia as guests of the government.

With the help of the ANC representative here, I was lucky to be able to play host to them, many of whom later became cabinet ministers.

I was surprised when, after a long conversation, they wanted to know why I did not support Dr Mahathir, whom they considered to be progressive.

My answer was simple. If the PM practises within the country what he preaches abroad about sovereignty, political equality, just governance, human rights, press freedom, level play-ground and so forth - and at the same time uses the wealth of the nation more for the welfare of the majority of people from various ethnic groups who really need it - then I would certainly have supported him.

I am sure many more would have done the same. But sad to say, his greatest failure is in matching words with actions in these matters.

Do I expect change to take place under the premiership of his successor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi?

To be frank, not much. I do not think Abdullah will deviate from the road for so-called development in Malaysia (mainly aimed at establishing a strong Malay capitalist class) that he inherits from Mahathir.

In fact, during the first year at least, I do not expect his basic approach to the many important political, economic, social and security issues to be very much different from that of Mahathir.

The only difference is that he will certainly be a much weaker leader than his predecessor.

DR SYED HUSIN ALI, a veteran opposition politician with a strong interest in social development, is president of PRM and deputy president of Parti Keadilan Rakyat.