KUALA LUMPUR, May 1 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed’s racial stereotyping to defend Malaysia’s pro-Bumiputera policies against US criticism illustrates why the former prime minister is no longer in power, political analysts said yesterday.

Clichés of non-Malay dominance over the economy in face of US President Barack Obama’s call for equality in Malaysia were symptomatic of a ruling class that is unwilling to yield control of the nation’s economy, despite evidence that the country’s race-based affirmative action is failing, they added.

“Despite all the flak people, including me, have given him, we respect his views... but there is a reason he is retired and Obama is in power,” Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan told The Malay Mail Online when contacted.

He also warned that the government’s continued preference for hand-outs — such as the billions of ringgit spent on programmes such as 1 Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) — risked addicting recipients to the aid.

While acknowledging Dr Mahathir’s assertion that many of the country’s richest were Chinese, Wan Saiful stressed that this supported findings that communities that did not receive overt government assistance tended to outperform those who did.

“The reason for that is that the government is saying if you’re poor they will give you things, like BR1M, subsidised items, free money,” he said, referring to the Bantuan Rakyat 1 Malaysia programme and hefty subsidies for items such as fuel and daily necessities.

“It’s that kind of intervention that keeps the poor poor. It is possibly true that the poor find it hard to break out of poverty while the privileged move further away, but you must ask why.”

Yesterday, Dr Mahathir defended pro-Bumiputera policies championed by the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, after Obama said that Malaysia will not prosper if minority groups continue to be marginalised, during his first visit to the Southeast Asian country over the weekend.

The country’s longest-serving prime minister argued during a book launch this morning that despite preferential treatment for the Bumiputera, the Chinese and Indian communities have had more than enough space to build their wealth and establish themselves in professional lines such as doctors and lawyers.

But Centre for Policy Initiatives (CPI) chief Dr Lim Teck Ghee said it was Dr Mahathir who was responsible for the elite “capitalists” that the latter now complained was dominating the country’s economy.

The outspoken economist said it was “insulting” for the former prime minister to pin the blame on the non-Malays for the concentration of wealth among select groups, when it was his ruling Barisan Nasional coalition that allegedly nurtured it.

“The fact is that Dr Mahathir, more than any other leader, has been responsible for the predicament of the Malay poor as well as the larger mess in the country today. It was Dr M who not only had authority but also directly pulled the strings when he was PM.

“It was his economic policy aimed at building up the class of super rich — which incidentally includes his son — which accounts for the inequality that is found today,” he said, referring to petroleum magnate Datuk Mokhzani Mahathir who made the list of the top-10 richest Malaysians this year according to Malaysian Business magazine.

Malaysia’s Bumiputera majority enjoys privileges under a system of preferential treatment in jobs, housing and access to government funding.

Among others, these have been blamed for Malaysia’s chronic brain drain that has seen its non-Malay communities leaving the country, with southern neighbour Singapore the main beneficiary.