Quotes of the Day

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi took time out from his election campaign to talk with TIME's Simon Elegant and Mageswary Ramakrishnan at his modest family home in the small town of Kepala Batas in northwestern Penang state. Highlights from the meeting:

TIME: Is your drive against corruption designed to win votes?
Abdullah: It's not a political ploy. Corruption is bad. It increases the cost of doing business. I will continue with my crusade against corruption [even after the election].

TIME: Do you fear a backlash from some politicians in UMNO because of your crackdown on corruption?
Abdullah: I can't help it if they are unhappy. I have a job to do.

TIME: Mahathir Mohamad's critics accused him of favoring a select group of businessmen. Will that happen in your administration?
Abdullah: As far as I am concerned, whatever we do must be fair. It's when people feel that something is not fair that the public starts to make noise. It's a question of perception. We have to distribute fairly to those who deserve it. These are established policies.

TIME: By rolling back some of the big infrastructure projects launched by Mahathir, are you intentionally dismantling parts of his legacy?
Abdullah: I don't really understand what people mean when they talk about his legacy. It's a question of how you implement policies. He had a different style for implementing them, and I have a different style.

TIME: PAS's religious leaders have attacked you for not being Islamic enough. They criticized you, for example, for not leading the prayers at your mother's funeral. Does this trouble you?
Abdullah: They are trying to rubbish me to score political points because, for this election, I am the key man in the ruling coalition. They are trying to throw one or two skeletons into my cupboard. They just want to diminish my status, my image in the eyes of voters, particularly Muslim voters. This is unbecoming for leaders of a Muslim party to do. It's completely against the teachings of Islam. I don't know where they learn these dirty tricks. Such tactics are a sign of desperation.

TIME: What do you make of claims by PAS that whoever votes for them will go to heaven?
Abdullah: They have nothing else to offer. They have no ideas that are tangible, no ideas that can be transmitted into some pragmatic program. They just want to promise their supporters heaven. They take sides to award heaven to whomever they choose.

TIME: How do you respond to critics who say you are indecisive?
Abdullah: What I have done—that's being decisive. The substance is in the decisions that you actually [make]; they must be just and fair. But it's not for me to project myself as strong, as decisive. It's for [the people] to decide.

• Simon Elegant and Mageswary Ramakrishnan
• An Interview with Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi