Mahathir's visit was eventful

The purpose of Mahathir's visit was primarily to accept an honorary degree of Law from the University of Dhaka. However, a 72-member high-powered team of Malaysian businessmen accompanied him to Bangladesh. The outcome of this aspect of the visit has been the establishment of business links, engendering investment opportunities and exploration of markets in each other's country. The excellent human capital available in Bangladesh, to quote the leader of the Malaysian delegation, might even encourage Malaysia to relocate some of its industries to Bangladesh. These are indeed encouraging developments.

However, what caught our imagination, as it must have of all those who followed his speeches, was his suggestion, somewhat alien to the political culture here, that while it was necessary to gain popular mandate to govern a country, populist measures were not necessarily the best course to adopt. What is good for the nation may, to start with, appear to be a bitter pill, but which must be endured to make the future sweet, as was the case with Malaysia. It is a classic example of transformation of a primarily agrarian economy, which Malaysia was when the British left, into highly developed industrialised economy in a matter of two decades. Nobody can agree more with him when he said that blaming the West or Israel would not help us. What's needed is unity among the Ummah for its development

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In the past we had repeatedly stressed one thing, and we make no apologies for saying it again, which is, an elected government should take all the harsh decisions it needs to take, at the early stages of its take-over, so as to see them implemented before the end of its tenure.

Since there is very little difference in the economic policies of the two major political parties, we fail to understand why there cannot be a common development strategy for the country based on bipartisan consensus.