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Daim Zainuddin

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In this Malay name, there is no surname or family name. The name Zainuddin is a patronymic, and the person should be referred to by their given name, Daim. The word "bin" or "binti"/"binte" means 'son of' or 'daughter of', respectively.
Yang Amat Berbahagia Tun Dr.
Daim Zainuddin
SSM SPMS SSAP DHMS DGSM
دائم زين الدين
Daim in 2018
Minister of Finance
In office
7 January 1999 – 31 May 2001
MonarchsJa'afar
Salahuddin
Prime MinisterMahathir Mohamad
Deputy
Preceded byMahathir Mohamad
Succeeded byMahathir Mohamad
ConstituencyMerbok
In office
14 July 1984 – 15 March 1991
MonarchsIskandar
Azlan Shah
Prime MinisterMahathir Mohamad
Deputy
Preceded byTengku Razaleigh Hamzah
Succeeded byAnwar Ibrahim
ConstituencyMerbok
Member of the Malaysian Parliament
for Merbok
In office
1986–2004
Preceded byNew constituency
Succeeded byZainuddin Maidin
(BN–UMNO)
Majority13,745 (1986)
15,843 (1990)
22,201 (1995)
15,376 (1999)
Member of the Malaysian Parliament
for Kuala Muda
In office
1982–1986
Preceded byKhir Johari
(BN–UMNO)
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
Majority14,058 (1982)
Personal details
Born
Che Abdul Daim bin Zainuddin[1][2]

(1938-04-29) 29 April 1938 (age 86)
Alor Setar, Kedah, British Malaya (now Malaysia)
Political partyUnited Malays National Organisation (UMNO) (until 2018)
Malaysian United Indigenous Party (BERSATU) (2018–2020)
Independent (since 2020)
Other political
affiliations		Barisan Nasional (BN) (until 2018)
Pakatan Harapan (PH) (2018–2020)
Spouse(s)Mahani Idris (deceased), Naimah Khalid
Children5
OccupationPolitician, businessman
Websitedaimzainuddin.com

Tun Dr. Che Abdul Daim bin Zainuddin[3][4] (Jawi: عبدالدائم بن زين الدين‎; born 29 April 1938) is a Malaysian politician and businessman who served as the Minister of Finance from 1984 to 1991. In May 2023, he was investigated for corruption of RM2.3 billion (approximately US$500 million) by the Malaysian authorities related to the expose from the Pandora Papers. which led to some bank accounts and assets controlled by him or his family to be seized or frozen.

Early life and education

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Che Abdul Daim bin Zainuddin was born in Alor Setar, Kedah, British Malaya (now Malaysia). He is the youngest of thirteen siblings. His father, Zainuddin Affan was a clerk in the Kedah State Civil Service whilst his mother, Hasimah Hassan was a homemaker. He received his early education at the Malay Primary School in Alor Setar, then he later attended a Special Malay Class at the Sultan Abdul Hamid College, an English-medium school and finally finished his upper secondary education at St. Xavier's Institution, George Town, Penang.

He was encouraged by his mother to further his studies as his father wanted him to become a lawyer and as a result, his mother sold their land to raise money for him to study law in England. Daim studied for eighteen months at Lincoln's Inn, London and was called to the English Bar in 1959 when he was only 21 years old.

Early career

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When he returned to Malaysia after his studies, he joined Pillai & Co. and later, the chambers of Shearn Delamore which was then the largest law firm in Kuala Lumpur. In 1961, he decided to move and work in Kota Bharu, Kelantan under Wan Mustaffa who was a legal adviser to the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PMIP) which later became known as Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS). After his stint in Kota Bharu, he joined the Malaysian Civil Service as a Magistrate, and became the President of the Sessions Court in Johor and subsequently became Deputy Public Prosecutor in Ipoh, Perak. He resigned from the service in 1965, returned to Kuala Lumpur and joined the law firm Allen & Gledhill for the next three years till his resignation in 1968 to start his own law practice of Daim & Gamany. In 1969, however, he decided to venture into business.

Business career

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His first business venture was in salt production, where he went to Thailand, Taiwan and Japan to study salt production, weather forecast and soil condition. During the start-up they proceeded to clear 600 acres (2.4 km2) of the coastal land of Kuala Selangor, but because the rain came unseasonably early just when the salt had begun to crystallise, they were almost bankrupted by it.

In 1971, he decided to venture into land and property development. Together with two other partners, he formed a company, Syarikat Maluri Sdn Bhd of which he held a 60% majority control. The company bought and developed Taman Bukit Maluri, Kepong and Daim became the first full-fledged Malay property developer in Kuala Lumpur.[citation needed] In 1971, Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak introduced the New Economic Policy that was an ambitious and controversial socio-economic restructuring affirmative action program. The NEP targeted a 30% share of the economy for Bumiputera. Hence, being only a handful of Bumiputeras involved in this sector, Daim naturally gained advantages from the government over his Chinese counterparts.

His next venture was in plastics production. After he obtained a license however, another two licenses were issued and this instigated early and keen competition to Daim's fledgling company. Furthermore, the workers were incited to strike and eventually the venture proved to be another bankrupting business. Fortunately, his other downstream ventures which included the plastic packaging company, Daibochi and the snack food factory, Sedap Food flourished and were later listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE). He also invested in the Ports' downstream business with stevedoring, forwarding and low-loader licenses and had set up a manufacturing plant making steel and iron products such as manhole covers and telephone posts. The success of these ventures helped towards offsetting loans and borrowings of the failed venture. Daim bought a 30% equity interest in United Estates Projects (UEP) now known as Sime Darby–UEP (developer of Subang Jaya township) and went on picking up stakes in the share market, mostly strategic rather than controlling stakes.

Daim was willing to take risks and opportunities. When President François Mitterrand of France came into power and nationalised French banks, Daim knew that Malaysian banking regulations did not allow for government-owned banks to operate in Malaysia and therefore knew that Bank Indo-Suez will either have to close its operations in Malaysia or were to be sold-off. He wrote a letter to the head of the bank registering his interest in the event that they would want to sell. The bank decided to sell to Daim and in 1981 he became the owner of Indo-Suez (later renamed as the Malaysian-French Bank). When the United Malayan Banking Corporation (then the 2nd largest bank in Malaysia) became available, he exchanged his majority stake in the Malaysian-French Bank for a smaller stake in this larger bank.

Political career

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Apart from business, politics have always interested Daim. His earliest exposure was as a student in London whereby though not actively involved in politics, he shared his fellow students interests in the political issues of the day particularly independence and post-independence implications on the socio–economic and religious mosaic of pluralistic Malaysia.

His first encounter with real politics albeit covertly was when in 1966, as a lawyer with Allen & Gledhill, the firm was appointed by the Federal Government of Malaysia to act for the governor of Sarawak in a case against the chief minister of that state. Back in Kuala Lumpur, Daim was asked to attend a cabinet meeting where he briefed the cabinet members of the political situation in Sarawak and pressed upon the cabinet the need for emergency to be declared to avert a worsening of the situation caused by the demonstrations against the chief minister's minority government. Emergency was declared. However, the security risk persisted and the governor as advised by the central government suspended the Standing Orders of the House and called for a meeting of the Assembly using emergency powers. Daim assisted in drafting the statement of the governor that the assembly was to debate; the assembly met, the chief minister's government was voted out of office. Impressed by his legal skills and political knowledge, the prime minister offered Daim a seat in Sungai Petani in the 1974 general elections but Daim declined, choosing instead to establish his credentials in business.

Daim decided that he was financially comfortable enough to retire in 1977. His retirement plan then was to go back to school and so he enrolled at University of California Berkeley to pursue a course in urban planning. At around the same time, he enjoyed a close rapport with the then Deputy Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

In 1978, Daim met Mahathir in Los Angeles and San Francisco, when Mahathir urged Daim to return to Malaysia and contest in the general election that year. At the same time, Daim was also offered the chairmanship of the Urban Development Authority (UDA) by the Public Enterprises Minister. However, he was not interested as he deemed it too big and widespread bureaucratic. Instead he suggested that the UDA should form a holding company and transfer all of its commercial property and commercial assets to it; only then would he agree to manage it. Hence, Peremba was established and Daim became its non-executive chairman with a team of young and bright hand-picked officers assisting him. In 1980, Daim was informed that the Prime Minister Tun Hussein Onn had appointed him as senator in the upper house of parliament.

Rise to prominence (1980s)

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When Mahathir became prime minister in 1981, he sent Daim to the United States to deal with the problem posed by the US' General Services Administration (GSA) tin stockpile releases which caused the price of tin to tumble, thus adversely affecting the Malaysian tin industry, it being a major producer of tin. The talks went well and the GSA agreed to limit their stockpile releases to 3,000 tonnes a year for three years.

However, the event that truly launched Daim's political career was the day before nominations for the 1982 general elections, when Mahathir told Daim that he was to contest the Kuala Muda Parliamentary seat. Within the short span of the next two years, his rise in politics was meteoric as he was appointed as Minister of Finance in 1984. At that same time the burgeoning economy kept up its momentum despite the high rate of borrowing and spending to keep the economy healthy. The full impact of the world recession on Malaysia was only felt in 1985. Internally too, there were many abuses involving financial institutions brought about by lack of proper supervision and control. By the time he took over, Daim could not avert the scandals, crisis and failures. However, Daim set about implementing a strict code of monetary and financial management to prevent the economic issues from becoming terminal for the whole economy. He stopped the practice of borrowing to beef up funds for spending, he instead curtailed expenditure to suit income, he slashed the allocation for the public sector – upsetting many quarters. In the years 1987, 1988 and 1989, Malaysia paid off about RM6.8 billion of its foreign debts which was earlier than scheduled, a record repayment rate for developing nations. The Far Eastern Economic Review, which had made dire predictions about Malaysia's economy in 1986, admitted in its issue of 1 September 1988 that Daim's effective management style had contributed positively and tremendously to Malaysia's economic recovery.[citation needed]

During this time, he never lost his love for the banking industry and after he retired he started investing in small banks overseas in Europe and Africa. As his business expanded, the banks needed to be organised under a bigger parent bank and he therefore acquired Hock Hua Bank (which he renamed International Bank of Malaysia Berhad) which was one of the smaller banks in Malaysia. Again he had to dispose of his stake when he was reappointed Minister of Finance in 1998. After his second retirement he is now again actively involved in the banking industry.

Retirement from politics

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Daim resigned as Finance Minister in March 1991, and the news caused a stir in Malaysia. He resigned as he felt he had improved the country's financial position. Further, the prime minister reiterated by saying that "Daim had agreed to take the post on condition that he stay only to help reorganize and improve the country's financial position. He said he had fulfilled this task and it was time I let him go." In accepting his resignation, the prime minister also welcomed his readiness to contribute his ideas to the nation. The prime minister recommended Daim for the "Tun" title – the highest honour in Malaysia. And so on 5 June 1991, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Azlan Shah conferred on Daim the Seri Setia Mahkota award, which carries the title "Tun".

Prior to his resignation, in 1991, Daim's contribution was succinctly summed up as thus: “Despite having much of his tenure clouded in controversy, the outgoing finance minister has nonetheless earned the reputation as one of the country’s ablest economic architects, having steered Malaysia through recession into four straight years of high growth.” In another article, “Daim exits office having earned the distinction of being a hard-driving technocrat, who resisted pressure by rival ministers who wanted to alter fiscal policy for political expediency...”.

Daim implemented four broad strategic structural reforms during the 1986 to 1991 period namely the mobilisation of the private sector, active external policies, the supportive role of the private sector and the rehabilitation of the public enterprises. To this day, the tenets of his economic policies are held in high esteem and are continually pursued to either jump start or sustain the Malaysian economy. Daim was appointed economic advisor to the government, chairman of the Northern Growth Triangle, the Labuan Development Authority and the Langkawi Development Authority and also the Treasurer of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the leading party in Malaysia's ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN). He was also Malaysia's representative to the East Asean Growth Area (EAGA). Daim Zainuddin was recalled to public service during the Asian Financial Crisis.

On 5 May 2018, Daim was sacked from UMNO together with party veterans; Rafidah Aziz and Rais Yatim for supporting Mahathir Mohamad and the opposition, Pakatan Harapan (PH).[5][6][7] Mahathir announced that Daim was appointed chief of the five-members in the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP), which served as advisors to the new government under PH after the coalition won the 2018 general elections.[8][9] Daim declared the council which had held its final meeting on 17 August 2018, has ended its 100-day term as it has fulfilled the mandate given to it within the specified period.[10][11]

In 2019, at the age of 81, Daim obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree from the University of Malaya after completing a thesis on the New Economic Policy of the Soviet Union, which he had worked on for 11 years.[12]

Corruption cases investigation and assets seizure

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A 60-storey building in downtown Kuala Lumpur controlled by the Zainuddin family, the Ilham Tower, located near the Petronas Towers, was seized by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on December 21, 2023 as part of a criminal investigation against Zainuddin and his family.[13][14]

On January 29, 2024, Zainuddin was charged with corruption for failing to declare 71 assets such as several luxury cars, companies, properties and land. He appeared in court to plead not guilty in a wheelchair, having been discharged from hospital prior the indictment. Zainuddin denied wrongdoing and claimed that it was an act of political persecution by the government of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, calling him a "wolf in sheep's clothing who cried reforms" but using state institutions to pursue his political opponents. Zainuddin's wife is also facing similar charges.[15]

Election results

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Parliament of Malaysia[16][17]
Year Constituency Candidate Votes Pct Opponent(s) Votes Pct Ballots cast Majority Turnout
1982 P012 Kuala Muda Abdul Daim Zainuddin (UMNO) 21,782 73.82% Gazzhali Dinn (PAS) 7,724 26.18% 30,570 14,058 76.79%
1986 P011 Merbok Abdul Daim Zainuddin (UMNO) 20,712 74.83% Reddhuan Oon (PAS) 6,967 25.17% 28,495 13,745 70.12%
1990 Abdul Daim Zainuddin (UMNO) 25,749 72.22% Mohd Joharrie Abbiddin (S46) 9,906 27.78% 36,831 15,843 72.71%
1995 P014 Merbok Abdul Daim Zainuddin (UMNO) 31,125 77.72% Maherran Muktarr (S46) 8,924 22.28% 41,941 22,201 70.56%
1999 Abdul Daim Zainuddin (UMNO) 30,285 67.01% Mocktar Mansor (KeADILan) 14,909 32.99% 46,599 15,376 73.19%

Honours

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Honours of Malaysia

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Daim hilang sebelah mata kerana jangkitan kuman". Retrieved 3 March 2024.
  2. ^ "Daim not bothered by his fate; says he worries about the country's future after being charged". Retrieved 3 March 2024.
  3. ^ "Daim hilang sebelah mata kerana jangkitan kuman". Retrieved 3 March 2024.
  4. ^ "Daim not bothered by his fate; says he worries about the country's future after being charged". Retrieved 3 March 2024.
  5. ^ "Malaysia election: Umno sacks two ex-ministers for backing opposition". New Straits Times. Archived from the original on 8 May 2018. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  6. ^ SUHAILA SHAHRUL ANNUAR and NOOR ATIQAH SULAIMAN (5 May 2018). "Daim, Rafidah, Rais sacked from Umno". New Straits Times. Archived from the original on 5 May 2018. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  7. ^ Sadho Ram (6 May 2018). "'Iron Lady' Rafidah Aziz And Two More UMNO Veterans Sacked For Supporting Pakatan Harapan". Says.com. Archived from the original on 8 May 2018. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  8. ^ Hermes Auto (12 May 2018). "Who's who in Mahathir's new Cabinet and Council of Elders". The Straits Times. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  9. ^ Geraldine Tong (12 May 2018). "Daim, Zeti, Kuok, Hassan, Jomo named in advisory council". Malaysiakini. Archived from the original on 12 May 2018. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  10. ^ Manirajan Ramasamy, Masriwanie Muhamading (20 August 2018). "CEP has ended its tenure, says Daim". New Straits Times. Archived from the original on 10 August 2019. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
  11. ^ "Malaysia's Council of Eminent Persons completes 100 days, to submit recommendations". Channel News Asia. 21 August 2018. Archived from the original on 20 October 2018. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  12. ^ "PhD for Daim Zainuddin on the New Economic Policy". Free Malaysia Today. Bernama. 13 October 2010. Archived from the original on 8 December 2019. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  13. ^ "Malaysia's anti-graft agency cracks down on former finance minister Daim, seizes his flagship property Ilham Tower". CNA. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  14. ^ "MACC SEIZES MENARA ILHAM". BERNAMA. 22 December 2023. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  15. ^ Eileen Ng (29 December 2023). "Malaysia charges ex-minister for not declaring assets, as graft probe targets Mahathir's allies". Associated Press. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
  16. ^ "Keputusan Pilihan Raya Umum Parlimen/Dewan Undangan Negeri" (in Malay). Election Commission of Malaysia. Archived from the original on 6 September 2011. Retrieved 4 February 2017. Percentage figures based on total turnout.
  17. ^ "Malaysia General Election : undiinfo Malaysian Election Data". Malaysiakini. Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 4 February 2017. Results only available from the 2004 election.
  18. ^ "Senarai Penuh Penerima Darjah Kebesaran, Bintang dan Pingat Persekutuan Tahun 1991" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  19. ^ a b c "SEMAKAN PENERIMA DARJAH KEBESARAN, BINTANG DAN PINGAT". Prime Minister's Department (Malaysia). Archived from the original on 19 July 2019. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  20. ^ "SPMS 1997". awards.selangor.gov.my.
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