DR. MAHATHIR MOHAMAD (Part 1)

Mahathir bin Mohamad
4th Prime Minister of Malaysia
In office 16 July 1981 – 31 October 2003
Monarch	Sultan Ahmad Shah (1979 - 1984) Sultan Iskandar Al-haj (1984 - 1989) Sultan Azlan Shah (1989 - 1994) Tuanku Jaafar Tuanku Abdul Rahman (1994 - 1999) Tuanku Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah (1999 - 2001) Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin (2001 - 2006)
Deputy	Musa Hitam (1981 - 1986) Ghafar Baba (1986 - 1993) Anwar Ibrahim (1993 - 1998) Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (1998 - 2003)
Preceded by	Tun Hussein bin Dato' Onn
Succeeded by	Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
4th Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia
In office 15 September 1978 – 16 July 1981
Preceded by	Tun Hussein bin Dato' Onn
Succeeded by	Tun Musa Hitam
20th Secretary General of Non-Aligned Movement
In office 25 February 2003 – 31 October 2003
Preceded by	Thabo Mbeki
Succeeded by	Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Born	20 December 1925 (1925-12-20) (age 82) Alor Star, Kedah Darul Aman, Malaya
Political party	None (formerly Barisan Nasional, UMNO)
Spouse	Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah
Profession	Doctor of Medicine
Religion	Islam
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Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad (IPA: [ma'ħɑ.ðiɽ bin mʊħɑmmæd̚]) (recorded as born on 20 December 1925) was the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the post for 22 years from 1981 to 2003, making him Malaysia's longest-serving Prime Minister, and one of the longest-serving leaders in Asia. During his term in office, he was credited for engineering Malaysia's rapid modernization and promoting non-individualistic "Asian values". Mahathir is also known for his criticisms of western and developed countries.

During his administration, he was considered as one of Asia's most influential leaders. Mahathir is also noted in the Western world as an outspoken critic of Western civilization.

Mahathir was born on 10 July 1925, in Alor Star, the capital of the northern state of Kedah, the youngest of nine children of a schoolteacher and a housewife. His father, Mohamad Iskandar, was of half-Indian origin, being the son of a Malayalee Muslim (who migrated from Kerala) and a Malay mother, while Mahathir's own mother, Wan Tampawan, was Malay.

During World War II, he sold pisang goreng (banana fritters) and other snacks to supplement his family income during the Japanese occupation of Malaya. Mahathir attended a Malay vernacular school before continuing his education at the Sultan Abdul Hamid College in Alor Star. Mahathir then attended the King Edward VII Medical College in Singapore, where he edited a medical student magazine called The Cauldron; he also contributed to the The Straits Times newspaper anonymously under the nickname "Che Det". Mahathir was also President of the Muslim Society in the college. Upon graduation in 1953, Mahathir joined the then Malayan government service as a medical officer. He married Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali—a fellow doctor and former classmate in college—on 5 August 1956, and left government service in 1957 to set up his own private practice in Alor Star. Mahathir thrived in private practice, and allowed him to own by 1959 a Pontiac Catalina and employ an ethnic Chinese chauffeur (at the time, almost all chauffeurs in Malaysia were Malays, owing to the economic dominance of the ethnic Chinese).^[12] Some critics have suggested this foreshadowed a later hallmark of Mahathir's politics, which focused on the "cultivation of such emblems of power". From his marriage with Siti Hasmah binti Haji Mohamad Ali, they have five children, three sons and two daughters. Both Mukhriz and Mokhzani Mahathir are involved in business as well as in politics while their eldest daughter Marina Mahathir is a prominent local writer and AIDS activist. He successfully underwent a heart bypass operation in 1989 at age 63.

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