liputan khusus
ASIAN DEVELOPMENT AND
DEMOCRACY
An Indonesian Account Toward Global Moderation
By Aburizal Bakrie
Chairman of Golkar Party
UMNO’s Annual General Assembly
Kuala Lumpur, December 3rd, 2013
Honorable guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Assalaamualaikum Wr. Wb.
It is a great honor to be here with you as a friend of UMNO
and of Malaysia. I wish to thank you for inviting me to
participate in your Annual General Assembly.
Let me be frank to you. I am always a secret admirer of
UMNO and of Malaysia’s great statesman, Mr. Mahathir
Mohamad. I have personally known Mr. Mahathir for many
years. He is like a teacher to me – I think he is a great
teacher to us all. With his sharp intellect, his optimism,
and his deep understanding of how to combine leadership
and persuasion, he has shown the world how Malaysia
could be brought forward and became one of the most
successful examples among developing world. Most
importantly, Mr. Mahathir has injected a healthy selfconfidence, a sense of purpose, as well as a can-do spirit
in the bloodstream of the people of Malaysia, which of
course radiated to the region and the world, including
Indonesia.
For all that, I wish to use this opportunity to thank the
former Prime Minister and to wish him well.
Whenever I think about Mr. Mahathir, I always think also
about two other great ASEAN leaders, Mr. Lee Kuan
Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore, and Mr.
Suharto, our former President. They lived in the same age,
became something like a triad of power who understood
each other. Of course they had their differences, but
33