A Day in the Life of "Dr. M"
	From breakfast to state dinner, the Prime Minister's life is a blur of essays, time clocks and Sinatra
	By John Colmey

Originally published December 9, 1996
No matter of state escapes him, from the choice of faucets in a new government building to the shape of Malaysia's foreign policy. Mahathir Mohamad stops only for prayer and sleep. The rest of his day is spent in a whirlwind of meetings, tours, decisions and edicts. TIME correspondent John Colmey was given the rare opportunity to follow the Prime Minister through a typical day. Colmey's report:

06:30
Mahathir wakes, has a quick breakfast of fruit and toast, dresses and retires to his study to write. His morning essays, on subjects ranging from national identity to inflation, are filed for later use. This morning, he assesses Malaysia's 20-year experiment with affirmative action. "We are concentrating on quality these days, not quantity," Mahathir explains.

08:41
After stopping at the palace to give his weekly briefing to the King of Malaysia, the PM walks into his offices on a forested hill overlooking Kuala Lumpur and clocks in—a ritual he decreed for all civil servants in 1981. If not for his earlier meeting, he would have been at the office by 8:00. The time card for the past week reads 7:57, 7:56, 7:57, 7:59, 7:57. Behind Mahathir are three security guards loaded down with files. "His homework for the cabinet briefing," explains Zakaria Wahab, the PM's assistant press secretary. "Tuesday is the only night we leave free for him." Throughout the Prime Minister's department, little green lights go on with a loud buzz, signaling that Mahathir is in and accessible to his staff. Red means he's busy.

09:00
A few doors down from the Prime Minister's office, the government's 23 ministers file into the cabinet room. Mahathir strolls in a few minutes later. The meeting under way, Zakaria opens his boss's office for a tour. The in-tray contains a map of Burma—the PM is planning a visit there next year—and a seventh draft of a speech on aids. Next to the desk are two computers, one for reading the files of government departments and the central bank, the other for surfing the Internet. (Mahathir has his own web page.) On the window sill are 34 model planes given to him by manufacturers—he is a licensed pilot, though he now flies mostly as co-pilot—and beyond the glass is Kuala Lumpur. "You could see all the changes from here," the PM says later. Behind the desk, above family photos, are glass cases full of books. Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim recalls the day Mahathir gave him a copy of Caravans, James Michener's novel about Afghanistan. "Another time," Anwar says, "he came in and said, 'How is it that this nomad Genghis Khan could conquer half the world? Why don't we learn more about this guy?"' To one side is a shelf of popular novels—by Jeffrey Archer, Dick Francis, Sidney Sheldon. On an inside page of many of them is Mahathir's signature and the date he finished the book.

12:45
At the cabinet meeting, Mahathir raises the problem of late bill payments by government departments. He worries that it sets a bad example for the rest of the country. "We decided today that everybody should pay up on time," he later reports.

14:45
After returning home to pray and have lunch with his wife, Mahathir careens toward Parliament in his chauffeur-driven stretch Proton limousine. He has given similar models to presidents Fidel Ramos of the Philippines and Suharto of Indonesia. "He likes to speed," says aide-de-camp Mohamad Ali. On a visit to Japan's Mitsubishi Corp., the car maker displayed its vehicle line, including an ambulance, a container truck and a bus. Mahathir took each of the 19 vehicles ripping around the test track. An aide remembers one worker marveling, "We have never seen a prime minister like this." At Parliament, Dr. M, as he is known to friends, walks up his special stairwell and greets a group of M.P.s. Only a week before, some of them had plotted to take over the ruling party in its triennial polls. But after a year of political maneuvering and an impassioned election night speech, Mahathir won his fifth term as party leader and emerged firmly in control. Today, they laugh at their leader's banter.

15:30
The green light is back on, with several appointments scheduled. The office atmosphere is friendly, which is surprising given Mahathir's reputation in the West for testiness. Zakaria says he is basically "very shy," which makes him more aggressive in public. "Westerners don't understand him," adds Mohamad. "He's a nice guy."

19:10
Mahathir clocks out, goes home, changes into a navy blue suit and drives to a farewell dinner for a retiring diplomat. On the stage, Yusni Hamid, the PM's preferred female singer, offers a mix of Malay and Western love songs and what everyone assumes is Mahathir's favorite, "My Way," Frank Sinatra's signature tune. "Everywhere I go they sing that song," he says. "But I keep pointing out to them that it begins with, 'And now my end is near.' I don't like to think my end is near, either politically or in terms of my own life."

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