Malaysia's Mahathir: A portrait of the premier as an old man

For a few seconds Thursday, Mahathir Mohamad looked his age.

The 93-year-old once and current prime minister of Malaysia wobbled a bit as he clasped the railing, cautiously mounted the four stairs leading to the stage in the bowels of the Asia Society and shuffled over to the podium.

Then Mahathir, called a strongman by his critics so often that he has a joke ready about it, faced the packed auditorium. He smiled broadly and began talking. And the years, maybe even a decade or two, seemed to melt away.

First came the speech: 20 minutes without a single note, relying on the wealth of experience that led one audience member to address him as "the elder statesman of Asia actually, the elder statesman of the planet."
Asked about his physical and political stamina, he said: "I don't really know." He acknowledged two heart operations and the occasional cough, "but I have my doctor following me everywhere I go."
He'd proposed that Beijing build a railway line with bigger, longer trains from China to the West: "The idea is not new to us."