Part 7/11:
However, Mahathir, viewing the crisis as an attack on national sovereignty, dismissed such policies as potentially deleterious and possibly leading to foreign control over Malaysia’s economy. The tension culminated in September 1998, when Dr. Mahathir dismissed Anwar Ibrahim from all his government and party positions amid allegations of corruption—a move that was widely interpreted as a political maneuver to consolidate control and to resist pressure to adopt IMF-style reforms.