This house is not a home
Dr M's Rococo y Loco altar to himself
The Egyptian Pharaohs and assorted autocrats throughout history would have been impressed with Prime Minister Mahahtir Mohamad's new residence. As for the rest of mankind, they'll just scratch their heads and ask, "What could he have been thinking?"
For sheer ostentation, Dr. M's Putrajaya palace is rivaled regionally only by the Sultan of Brunei's sumptuous quarters. So, understandably, recession-struck Malaysians won't be happy that Mahathir has chosen this particular time to play monarch in a hyper-expensive edifice in the Rococo y Loco style of architecture that seems to captivate megalomaniacal dictators of any stripe.
Little wonder Dr. M is reluctant to share a peek of his palace with us riffraff and has ordered Malaysia's pusillanimous press to keep their camera lenses tightly capped when in its vicinity. Even in good economic times, when Mahathir launched the construction of his new administrative capital south of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysians murmured rebukes about the wasteful extravagance. Now, with Malaysia struggling to climb out of recession and a general election pending, Putrajaya and especially Dr. M's pleasure palace have unleashed far more damning comments. The project is simply and positively sinful.
Res ipsa loquitur
Till recently, the row has revolved around the conflicting cost figures for Putrajaya as a whole and for the palace in particular. Deposed and jailed Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said last September that Dr. M's residence cost taxpayers at least RM200 million. Mahathir's spin-meisters shot back that the PM's residential quarters only cost RM17.5 million, while the facility's "public-function" areas and VIP guest quarters totaled another RM57.5 million. No one has yet placed a figure on the palace interior's fittings and furnishings, on its subterranean structures or on the fees paid to its French interior designer. It may be some time before the controversy is resolved, and the figure may well exceed RM200 million.
But the photographs of Dr. M's palace that finally appeared have reduced this debate to a mere sideshow. There can now be no denying that it's big, bawdy and bacchanalian. With the curtain lifted, we all can judge with our own eyes the vanity and arrogance of Malaysia's self-ordained Rajah.
And, over here, is the bunker
What our eyes may never be able to see, however, is the palace's subterranean confines, replete with a well-appointed bomb shelter and underground escape route directly to the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Serviced by an express elevator from the main residence, both are tailor-made for an out-of-touch dictator, fearful of having his "Bastille" stormed by riotous and hungry mobs. Let them eat kueh, Dr. M may say one day.
Much like the increasing number of crony bailouts and wasteful patronage projects, Dr. M's palace and the surrounding Putrajaya complex is being funded off-budget and, therefore, outside public review. Its existence is credited to Putrajaya Holdings Sdn. Bhd., whose controlling shareholder is the deep-pocketed national oil company, Petroliam Nasional Bhd.
By statute, Petronas is answerable to and controlled by the department of the prime minister. Because of this ownership arrangement, and because Dr M's ego is obviously deeply invested in his new quarters, Putrajaya wasn't axed or postponed, as were so many of Dr. M's grand schemes after the onset of the Asian financial crisis.
Malaysians have been told that by joining wired Putrajaya with nearby high-tech Cyber Jaya, with both having easy access to the new airport, Malaysia has created the makings of a Silicon Valley East. Maybe. But freeMalaysia smells another Perwaja-like white elephant.
freeMalaysia also doubts whether the man for whom Putrajaya was named would have been impressed with Dr. M's digs. The late Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-haj, Malaysia's first prime minister, was a rather humble chap, despite his descent from the Kedah royal family. We'll never know, of course, what the Tunku thinks of the new city, built by the man whom he kicked out of his political party. But for sure, he would not have sat still for it being named Putrajaya.
From http://www.freemalaysia.com