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Baradan Kuppusamy

When it comes to the elder statesmen of Singapore and Malaysia, it seems old rivalries never die. 
Singapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew,  who ended his eight-day tour of  Malaysia on Monday, was the target of a broadside by the  man he had studiously avoided meeting - former prime minister  Mahathir Mohamad.
Yesterday, Dr Mahathir described Mr Lee, 85, as the 'Little Emperor ... of a tiny Middle Kingdom' in a posting  on his  blog,   and referred to Malaysians who met Mr Lee as 'supplicants' receiving directions on how to run Malaysia.
 'All those who met the great man from the little country were lectured on how Malaysia should be run,' Dr Mahathir wrote. 
'We should not have any more problems now. We have been told the direction to take,' he added sarcastically.
 'Of course, this self-deluding perception places Singapore at the centre of a vast region. It is therefore the latter-day Middle Kingdom. The rest are peripheral and are there to serve the interest of this somewhat tiny Middle Kingdom.'
He also attacked Mr Lee over old issues like the price Singapore pays Malaysia for the millions of gallons water it supplies every year, arguing that the pricing structure is based on an outdated decades-old agreement.
Malaysia has on occasions threatened to cut the supply to pressure Singapore politically.
Dr Mahathir also launched an attack against his successor Abdullah Badawi,  who was forced to resign in February, as the 'great Fifth Prime Minister'. 
His dripping comments were completely blacked out by the government-controlled mainstream media, but news websites gave them big play.
 Despite Dr Mahathir's ranting, Mr Lee  had a fruitful visit, his aides said. He met new and old leaders, including Muslim hardliners of the Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), upcoming Chinese and Malay leaders, and some veteran politicians who remembered  Mr Lee as an opposition lawmaker in the Malaysian parliament in the 1960s. 
He did not meet opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim,  whose trial on charges of sodomy opens next month.
 'His visit is part nostalgia, part fact-finding and part meeting the new leaders of Malaysia,' said political scientist  Denison Jayasooria.  
 People who met Mr Lee said he was 'greatly concerned' about the prospects of Islamic hardliners gaining greater political traction ahead of the next elections, in 2014.  
 'He came primarily to develop contacts with us ... the future leaders of Malaysia,' said Kulasegaran Murugeson,  a lawmaker with the opposition Pakatan Rakyat  coalition.
Mr Kulasegaran said Dr Mahathir's criticism of Mr Lee's visit served to pander to a 'small group' of hard-line Malays who are anti-Singapore, and he praised Mr Lee for having made the journey.
 'He is a statesman, he is concerned about his country and braved criticism to visit and find out for himself what the new, emerging Malaysia is like,' Mr Kulasegaran said.
Prior to his leading Singapore, Mr Lee often crossed swords with Dr Mahathir over equal rights and meritocracy in the Malaysian parliament. Mr Lee was a fiery critic of special rights for Malays.  
And to this day, Dr Mahathir is an equally fiery critic of Singapore.
'Maybe someone should make a study of the Malays of Singapore just to know what it is like to be a Malay minority in their own country,' Dr Mahathir wrote in his blog.



Lee's visit inspires Mahathir's wrath and poison pen