Tun Mahathir slams gov't move to scrap pro-Malay policy

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday slammed the government's move to open up the economy to foreigners, saying it is akin to selling out the country.
After a lull of over a month, partly since he was recovering from a mild heart attack and flu, Tun Mahathir was back on track in his campaign against the government.
Speaking at a forum entitled "Malay leadership in the globalization era" organized by the Kulai branch of the ruling party, the United Malays National Organization, Tun Mahathir said the Malays are not ready to compete.
He especially took exception to the plans by the government's initiative to develop southern Johor State that borders Singapore, a country that is Tun Mahathir's favorite punching bag.
Malaysia aims to turn an area three times the size of Singapore in southern Johor into a metropolis akin to what Shenzhen is to Hong Kong.
Last week, in a move to woo foreign investors to the region officially known as the Iskandar Development Region, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced a slew of incentives including tax holiday and the abolition of the 35-year-old property gain tax.
But the most radical was the scrapping of the requirement to give 30 percent equity ownership to ethnic Malays as enshrined under the country's affirmative action policy.
Foreign investors are allowed 100 percent ownership of their business and they also do not have to adhere to the 30 percent Malay employees quota.
Tun Mahathir, however, sees the moves as throwing the country back to colonial times.
Malays, he said, would once again be "enslaved" in their own country and end up being "chauffeurs" to foreigners.
"The Malays will have no place. I am not trying to use racialism. If we give up willingly to foreigners, we are giving up our rights," he told some 400 people who thronged a small hall in Kulai town just 20 kilometers from Johor Baru, the capital of Johor, to hear him speak.
Early in his speech, Tun Mahathir remarked that while in power he used to have thousands coming to listen to him speak.
"Thousands would gather and all want to kiss my hand but now...don't know what is my fault," he said.
Tun Mahathir has accused Abdullah of creating a "police state," using threats to stop people from meeting him or inviting him to officiate their functions.
Tun Mahathir, who handed over the reins to Abdullah in 2003, has been on a warpath against his successor especially after the latter last year stopped the bridge project linking Johor to Singapore, a project initiated by Tun Mahathir.
"Singapore was booted out of Malaysia by Tunku Abdul Rahman but today, we have to bow to Singapore," he said.
Tunku Abdul Rahman was Malaysia's first prime minister. Singapore gained an acrimonious divorce from Malaysia in 1965.
In his speech, Tun Mahathir again blasted Abdullah, calling him a liar and accusing him of corruption and nepotism.