Malaysia’s former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, has been admitted to hospital for fatigue, his office confirmed on Sunday, after local media reported he had left a birthday picnic early.

Authoritarian regimes and dictators around the world must feel vindicated by the just-concluded presidential race in the United States, the one-time champion of liberal democracy that had the habit of exporting if not imposing its political system and the accompanying values to the rest of the world.