PETALING JAYA: Former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who once called Malaysiakini a "traitor" to the country, has criticised the country’s current leadership in an exclusive interview that was granted to the online news daily after a six-year wait.

Mahathir, who led the nation for 22 years, told Malaysiakini in a 45-minute interview with four editors and one reporter in his Petronas Twin Towers office on May 16, 2006, that he is disappointed with some decisions by his handpicked successor who took office three years ago.

He, however, refused to rate Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s performance, citing possible negative effects. Proton and the half-bridge project - both mooted during his tenure - topped the list of Mahathir’s disappointments with the current administration.

The full interview will run in parts over three days until Thursday (May 25, 2006) at www.malaysiakini.com/news Malaysiakini editor-in-chief Steven Gan said Dr Mahathir began the interview by declaring his dislike of the online daily.

"There are some questions which I will not answer... I never liked Malaysiakini.com. It was very critical of me before," he said.

Gan described the meeting as "not a warm one"."I presume he agreed to it grudgingly or maybe he was advised to do so," he said.

"We have been pursuing him for an interview since Malaysiakini’s inception in November 1999. We have no idea why he finally agreed," Gan said.

The interview which was scheduled for March was postponed three times. "We wish we had more time to talk and question him on the 22 years of his leadership which he has to account for," Gan said. The relationship between Malaysiakini and Mahathir was always a strained one that contained moments of animosity.

Mahathir branded Malaysiakini a "traitor" to the country in 2001, and in the earlier years, its reporters were often banned from government press conferences.
In January 2003 Malaysiakini’s office was raided by the police and its computers confiscated following a report by Umno Youth against a letter published by Malaysiakini which they alleged questioned the special rights and privileges of Bumiputras to the detriment of other races.

In Kuala Lumpur, Mahathir admitted he was against Malaysiakini six years ago but the online news website still wanted to interview him.

"Six years ago, they write a lot about me. They were not for me and now they want to talk about me and I don’t know what they have written, I have not seen ... maybe it is something not nice or maybe nice but I have given my views," he told reporters at the Malaysian Business Corporate Governance Award 2005 today (May 23, 2006). In the past, he said he had given interviews to people who did not like him, such as the Far Eastern Economic Review, Time magazine and The Economist , and they wrote "a lot of nasty things" about him instead.