Mahathir on COVID-19’s Impacts and Crisis Responses in Malaysia

Norafidah Ismail (School of International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia)
Farah Haziqah Adnan (School of International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia)
Ratnaria Wahid (School of International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia) *

Southeast Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal

ISSN: 1819-5091

Article publication date: 15 December 2021

Issue publication date: 15 December 2021

223
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Abstract

At the age of 92, Mahathir Mohamad served his country as the Prime Minister for the second time. But unlike his first stint as the head of the government, which lasted 22 years, this time, his tenure was less than two years. His resignation, which was linked to some internal issues within the Pakatan Harapan (PH) allied parties, came at a time when many countries in the world were in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak. Mahathir was aware of the power struggle that was adversely affecting the government's response to combat the virus transmission and reduce the rising number of COVID-19 infection cases. With his long experience in governance and as a former medical officer, Mahathir offered some advice and recommendations to the existing government on ways to address the public health crisis. Since the coronavirus outbreak, the domestic political and economic developments also drew his direct criticism and critical commentaries.

Keywords

Citation

Ismail, N., Adnan, F.H. and Wahid, R. (2021), "Mahathir on COVID-19’s Impacts and Crisis Responses in Malaysia", Southeast Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 50-64. https://doi.org/10.1108/SEAMJ-02-2021-B1004

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, 1999-2022 Southeast Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal

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This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited


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