There have been times when some of us have despaired of Malaysia’s ability to survive 22 years of political malpractice by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, plus four years of further incompetent treatment by his unqualified hand-picked locum, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Cancerous with corruption, riddled with cronyism, half-paralysed with fear and drugged senseless on opiates doled-out by teams of spin-doctors, the nation appeared for decades to have all the symptoms of terminal decline.

But the recent general election demonstrated that Malaysia is more resilient than many gave it credit for.