“What makes a good follower?”

At the essay competition, the Guest of Honour, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad chose the occasion to remind the audience that followers are just as important as leaders. “A leader becomes a leader because there are people supporting them. Followers who are also voters must be quite knowledgeable in order for the country to remain prosperous. Followers must be intelligent and they must understand what they do when they choose their leaders.”

“Some followers tend to become fanatics and will vote irrespective of the candidates. This is because they think that they can get something out of (the selection of leader), despite not knowing if the   candidates are corrupt to begin with. In my tenure, many people have often asked me ‘What makes a great leader?’. Not once, has anyone asked me ‘What makes a good follower?’”

He warned, “The quality of followers leads to the quality of the leader. If followers are corrupt, uneducated, fanatical and abusive, the leaders will turn out as bad. In a democracy, the number of votes matters and bad leaders will create a bad government.   There will definitely be a high price for us all to pay, when followers make the wrong choices.”