A quick recap of Malaysia’s leaders and the success of their Malaysia Plans
Carolina Cheah, Malaysian Digest
With the prime minister tabling the 11th Malaysia Plan today, how many Malaysians are actually aware of the role of these Malaysia Plans and their big impact on the nation and its people?
Terence Edmund Gomez from Department of Administrative Studies and Politics, Universiti Malaya had shared the highlights of successive Malaysia Plans since 1966 in an interview with Shaarad Kuttan on BFM radio this morning.
It was the 1st Malaysia Plan launched in 1966 to 1970 by Tunku Abdul Rahman that first tried to address the redistribution of wealth and saw the establishment of Bank Bumiputera but was abruptly faced with the 1969 political crisis.
2nd and 3rd Malaysia Plan
Coming out of that dark period in Malaysian history, the 2nd Malaysia Plan wasted no time to introduce the 20-year National Economic Policy (NEP) which specifically tried to address the redistribution of wealth and eradication of poverty.
Gomez explained how the key focus of the plan on education with the idea to build very fine schools manned by excellent teachers and take potential poor students out of kampungs and send them to these new residential schools.
Then these students would be sent to universities, both foreign and local, and these children have now emerged as the current Bumiputra middle class today exemplifying the wide-ranging impact and success of these plans.
The 3rd Malaysia Plan under Tun Hussein Onn continued the educational drive of the 2nd plan.
4th to 8th Malaysia Plan
However, a monumental shift happened when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (Tun M) came to power in 1981 and his successive five Malaysia Plans saw a major move from education to wealth distribution and industrialization.
Under Tun M, he drove the nation’s policies to develop Malay capitalists, famously noting that if ‘there are 20 Chinese millionaires, why shouldn’t there be 20 Malay millionaires’?
His Malaysia Plans saw heavy industrialization established, massive privatisation initiated and the introduction of the private sector as the primary vehicle to drive his industrialization policies.
It was also during his time in office that the NEP ended in 1990 and Tun M introduced the 30-year Vision 2020.
9th Malaysia Plan
The brief time Tun Abdullah Badawi was in office saw him launch the 9th Malaysia Plan which was daringly divergent from Tun M’s previous thrust.
If Tun M was all about big business and privatization, Abdullah decided to focus on small and medium industries (SMEs) which emphasised on modernising agriculture with bio-technology initiatives.
Terence also highlighted what he saw was a very insightful last chapter of this plan which outlined changing the public delivery system. Abdullah acknowledged that while we have good policies, the government should be able to deliver it.
The plan talked about institutional changes to ensure those policies can be delivered and also outlined changes that will have to transpire within the bureacracies to ensure the policies success.
It is a widely known fact that Tun M was unhappy with the change of focus initiated by Abdullah and engineered his subsequent removal from office.
Tun M’s role in removing Badawi and the context in which we have Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak coming to power is particularly poignant given the current political standoff between Tun M and Najib now.
10th Malaysia Plan
When he came to office, Najib had to grapple not just with political change but also the fact that the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition had just lost 5 States in the general election and Malaysia was grappling with the global financial crisis of 2008.
Najib lauched the Government Transformational Programme (GTP) and the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and outlined his agenda for change. He spoke about sustainability, inclusiveness and of course, his vision for 1 Malaysia.
Terence pointed out that under careful analysis, Najib’s plan bears little in continuation from Badawi’s model but actually picked up where Tun M left off – a mix of state intervention and privatization.
However his blend of ‘affirmative’ action – market friendly policies combined with the state/privatization mix did not fully win over the hearts of voters in the 13th General Election held in 2013.
So, for most Malaysians who do not see or feel the impact of these long- ranging Malaysia Plans in their daily life, the opposite is actually true as the past Malaysia Plans have set our country on a journey which have seen us arrive at this point in the year 2015 as a nation on the brink of achieving a developed nation status.
All eyes or rather ears should be tuned in carefully to what is outlined in the critical 11th Malaysia Plan that will take us to that goal.
