Mahathir does it his way -- right up to the end

Lim Shu Ling, Contributor, Singapore

Whenever a certain Kuala Lumpur theater group wanted to depict Mahathir Mohammad in their satirical skits, they often had someone parodying him singing I did it my way that Sinatra song whose refrain has become the personal motto of the Malaysian leader.

So it should be no surprise for Malaysians and observers of Malaysian politics that this frequently controversial leader should choose to announce he was finally leaving in exactly the way he did, publicly and without giving away any hint of it beforehand. But like the supreme poker player that he is, that is indeed what he did one Saturday evening, on national television in between two World Cup games.

Rumors immediately sprung up swirling around the favorite conspiracy themes, that the whole thing was no more than another ploy by Mahathir to consolidate power. Other coffeeshop theories making their rounds in KL center on the state of his health, or that he is essentially fed up with trying to change the mind-set of the Malays. Neither his friends nor his foes could really believe that he was finally stepping down of his own volition.

But as the ruling Malay party, UMNO started to come up with a timetable for a transition of power, and Mahathir himself came back from a Mediterranean holiday to confirm that he was indeed stepping down, the country has had to accept the inevitable, that they will soon face a future without Mahathir at the helm.

It is clear that of all the terrible transitions we have seen in recent years throughout the region, what we are witnessing is an extraordinary time in Malaysia. Mahathir is going out with a bang but not the sort of bang that brings down governments and ravages societies.

Mahathir leaves the country in a good state of economic health, having pulled it back from the brink of destruction in the Asian Crisis, he is now leaving it chugging along relatively well. Instead of just putting a chicken in every pot, he's also managed to put a Proton in every garage, the hallmark of the middle-class and evidence of how incomes have risen in Malaysia.

He also leaves the country a darling of the post-911 Western world who wants to hold it up as a prime example of how a predominantly Muslim country can be progressive and moderate and a country you can do business with. In so doing, he has also marginalized the opposition Islamic party further. He's even managed to give a final prod to the system by challenging the Malays to change some more, and English-medium instruction may soon be making its way back to the school system to reverse the terrible decline of English language so necessary if one is to operate in the global marketplace these days.

Histrionics apart, Mahathir's departure from the political landscape truly signals the end of an era, not only for Malaysia, but for Southeast Asia as a whole. The last of the region's political strongmen, the leader has centralized power to a degree unseen before and unlikely to be seen again in Malaysia. Throughout his 21 years, he ruthlessly dealt with opposition, and has been accused of emasculating the Malaysian judiciary, curtailing the powers of the King, symbolic as they were, and also gained an infamous reputation for losing his deputies.

The depth of the shock among Malaysians upon his announcement shows the extent to which he has fixed himself in the collective imagination as an inseparable part of the country and how he has come to ultimately symbolize the government. In that, Mahathir is a prime example of how politics can become highly personalized. You either loved or hated Mahathir, and consequently loved or hated Malaysia, the identification was that intimate.

This pattern of personalized politics is one we are very familiar with in this region. We have seen it and still see it in Singapore. We have seen how it collapsed in a horrible mess and bloodshed in Indonesia, the reverberations of which still color the entire political landscape. In Malaysia's case, however, we may be seeing the first successful instance of a smooth, peaceful transition of power in Southeast Asia from that of a personalized, authoritarian system to a system where there will be more breathing space for alternative voices in government.

This doesn't mean that Malaysia will become a model of popular democracy overnight. Rather with the departure of Mahathir, and the lack of anyone else of his stature and nature in power, the civil service in particular, and the political parties will begin to have more say in the day-to-day running of things. The direction of the ship will no longer hinge on one man's decisions and ideas. Without someone who squashes opposition as effectively as Mahathir, this may also lead to more say by the people.

While not being particularly democratic himself, Mahathir's manner of departure may ensure the best chance for democracy to grow. Thus, democracy may slowly evolve in Malaysia, too slow perhaps and too undramatic for her critics, but for the majority of Malaysians, without the social and political chaos and upheaval seen elsewhere in the region. And if Mahathir's time has taught Malaysians anything it should be that they should be unafraid of doing things "their way".

Whatever one's personal feelings about Mahathir, life will surely be tamer and less colorful without him around. Malaysia's claim to the international limelight whether because outsiders saw him as an anti-Semite dictator with no regard for human rights, or as a maverick who managed to somehow pull the country out of recessions and crises by going against the conventional wisdom, will be somewhat diminished following his departure. And as a Malaysian and a journalist, one can't help but be a little sad about that.

The writer is a journalist for BBC's Asia Bureau based in Singapore.