Uun Abdullah's Political Leadership: Tuun Dr. Mahathir

After the retirement of Tun Dr. Mahathir, Tun Abdullah continued his legacy for a few years with his own approaches. A leader requires legitimacy in his leadership during his time of being in power in order to form a mind set among his people and supporters to realise and understand their obligation to have the utmost loyalty to their leader (Weber, 1964). ‘Political legitimacy is seen as ‘a general acceptance by the public upon the political system’ (Lipset, 1963), without influence from differences of opinion which places the trust of moral rights to lead, as averred by Muthiah Alagappa (1995), relies on several factors. Firstly, the history of power structure inherited by the relationship between the government and the people places strong
There were a lot of differences in political leadership during his time, in addition, his political leadership is totally different with Tun Dr. Mahathir’s political leadership. Sivamurugan Pandian, Rusdi Omar &Mohd Azizuddin, again said in their journal, ‘according to Tun Abdullah, the changes made in his rudiments of the government under his administration relied on facts and figures-‘…what needs to be changed what needs to be adjusted, all those are done based on facts and figures that we have taken into consideration’ (New Straits Times, 2006)’ (SivamuruganPandian,Rusdi Omar &MohdAzizuddin, 2010). ‘The changes were made in an inclusive, low-key style that is perhaps even more distinctive from Dr. Mahathir’s hard-hitting approach than are the actual activities.’ (Welsh, 2005). Some scholars agree that Tun Abdullah’s administration was weak, ‘…his administration was soon criticised for being weak, lacking in focus and direction.’ (KhadijahMd Khalid, 2009). ‘Ethnic relations worsened because the Abdullah administration has reverted to promoting and protecting Malay Agenda and the Islamisation of society.’ (Lee Hock Guan,
Mahathir’s approaches. The motto of Islam Hadhari was ‘Cemerlang, Gemilang & Terbilang’. Islam Hadhari was launched on 23 September 2004 and the objective of Islam Hadhari was to guide development efforts in Malaysia and the wider Islamic world. Islam Hadhari also focused on human capital development as a key pillar of his administration. In Islam Hadhari, Tun Abdullah brought up the Halal issue, which was related in OIC. Minister of Prime Minister’s Department in a report , Datuk Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said, ‘…the cabinet decided to streamline halal operations, which until now had been handled by two separated bodies, the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM) and Ministry of International Trade & Industry (MiTi).’ (Hamid, 2008) . Regarding to this report, he also said that Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) acknowledged that Malaysia was in Halal hub and Malaysia also the only one country that was recognized by OIC with the halal