KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 29 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has finally admitted to helping rich businessmen during the Asian Financial Crisis of the 1990s that also sent Malaysia’s economy into a tailspin.

The prime minister a second time around admitted that he made the decision to help the “tycoons” and their businesses, but in his trademark sardonic style, said it was a strategic move that prevented mass retrenchment that also kept investments and money flowing into the country and the Treasury while the entire region suffered.

“But of course it would have been better if we didn’t help the tycoons and let their businesses fold,” he wrote on his personal blog today.

“By doing that all those under their payroll (both rich and not rich) will be jobless. Exports will decline and there will be no foreign cash inflow into the country.

“And then the government will lose corporate and personal tax income because a large share of it are paid for by the tycoons. Huge sum of government revenue will be lost. Government operations and development will have to stop. No infrastructure developed,” the 94-year-old added.

What prompted his sarcastic post is unclear, but critics have long accused Dr Mahathir of cronyism when he served as prime minister from 1981 to 2003.

They claimed his privatisation push had helped enrich a small pool of elites that shared close ties to the government then under Barisan Nasional, and that Dr Mahathir helped bail out many of their businesses when the economy tanked, even if some were said to be underperforming.

Dr Mahathir, who now heads the Pakatan Harapan coalition elected into power last year on promises for reform, has never admitted to any wrongdoing. 

Over the years, he remained insistent that the bail-outs were necessary to limit the effects of the financial crisis and avert a full-blown catastrophe.

Most of these companies are now owned by the government through holdings.

In today’s post, Dr Mahathir said losing tax money from wealthy businessmen would have forced the government to seek income elsewhere. 

This, he argued, would have inevitably led to more tax for the middle and lower class.

“In a situation where we have lost tax money from the tycoons so we would have been forced to tax those who are not categorised as tycoons,” he said.

“After those not considered tycoons are taxed, they will then become poorer.” 

The prime minister then said the current government could find ways to “kill” or “banish” the ultra-rich Malaysians if that is what voters really want. 

“But how do we help the non-tycoons once these tycoons are no longer around to pay tax?”