I cannot understand why Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced his resignation without giving any inkling of the dramatic moments ahead.

Even if we accept his resignation at face value, why did he suddenly choke with emotion and break down? Is he trying to say that he really doesn't want to go but has realised that he has no other choice but to do so now?

In contrast former premier Hussein Onn announced his much anticipated resignation during the 1981 Umno general assembly with a smile. Mahathir, then deputy premier, and the entire Umno waited eagerly for the announcement. When Hussein Onn finally announced his resignation, there was spontaneous clapping and cheering, albeit briefly.

Hussein Onn stopped his speech briefly and smiled. Everybody looked embarrassed and immediately toned down their clapping and cheering. There was embarrassed laughter all around.

Last Saturday, International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz spontaneously rushing to Mahathir obviously prevented him from continuing his speech. It may have been the sight of Mahathir breaking down that invoked the motherly instinct in Rafidah and prompted her to rush to the PM.

Would Rafidah have done so if Mahathir did not break down? Umno Youth chief Hishammuddin Hussein and Puteri Umno chief Azalina Othman Said also rushed in. These three together with Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi set off an emotional mass reaction, which carried the day.

Badawi went to the mike spontaneously and called on everybody to urge Mahathir to retract his resignation.

The other Umno supreme council members, especially deputy president Najib Abdul Razak and gang, didn't seem genuine in their reactions. They seemed to be pretending to be unhappy over Mahathir's resignation since the members of the general assembly seemed to be against it.

Najib's subsequent remarks to the press seemed to bear out the belief that he wasn't really sorry to see Mahathir go. Does he think that Mahathir is somehow squatting on his hereditary birthright?

Overall, it seems rather strange that Mahathir should announce his resignation without first having the courtesy of consulting his wife, Dr Siti Hasmah, and his deputy Abdullah. Hussein Onn at least did that much in 1981. The Hussein Onn resignation, as a result, was widely anticipated well before the actual announcement.

All this can only strengthen the claims of those who believe that Mahathir's resignation is another sandiwara (play-acting). In fact, it has all the makings of a good MGR (Tamil actor-turned-politician) melodrama script.

Still, there's no doubt that Mahathir is deeply frustrated by his inability to create a push-button situation in Malaysia the way that Lee Kuan Yew has done in Singapore. He confessed as much in recent interviews with the press. Besides, he has of late run into resistance from the Malays themselves to any plan to gear the community towards coping with a more competitive environment.

Also, there's no doubt that Mahathir, being an extremely intelligent man, has finally seen the light and no longer has any wish to die in the prime minister's chair but at the same time finds it extremely difficult and painful to step down. He has painted himself into a corner. This is evident in the fact that he broke down when announcing his resignation from all party and government posts.

Mahathir, having pulled his resignation 'stunt', will not be able to make a repeat performance if he continues to stay on. He will have to think of something else. In the days, weeks and months ahead, much of the debate on Mahathir will focus on his eventual 'exit strategy'.

What will be the manner and timing of his departure? Will Abdullah succeed Mahathir as PM or will a compromise candidate be brought in from 'outside' Umno? Will there be life after Mahathir? How will Malaysia survive the Mahathir phenomenon?

Personally, I don't want to see Dr Mahathir go right now. This is not because I love him but more because there will be great instability in the country if he simply steps down. The reason for this great instability can be traced to his prolonged stay in office.

The longer a leader stays in office, the greater the instability which follows his eventual departure. Yugoslavia, where Joseph Tito stayed 50 years in office, and Indonesia, where Suharto was in power 33 years, are recent examples.

For starters, we can expect a period of political instability following Mahathir's departure, sooner or later. In fact, it is crystal clear that the longer he outstays his welcome the greater will be the instability that follows and vice versa.

As it is, he has already stayed too long in office based on his pet theory that frequent changes of government are bad and, in fact, there's no need to change governments. Mahathir peddled this theory in public not so long ago in London when meeting with Malaysian university students and businessmen.

(One can only hope that Mahathir will not emulate Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore and Tun Abdul Rahman Yakub in Sarawak and leave Malaysia with a political dynasty to ensure his family's continued hold on political and economic power.)

Political instability will result in instability in all other spheres of our national life. All those forces suppressed since 1981 will unleash themselves and virtually run amok. The pressures are building up and will blow away anyone who steps into the political limelight after Mahathir.

Abdullah must not think that he has two horns on his head or belabour under the misconception that the nation is willing to tolerate another Mahathir after Mahathir. We have before us the examples of the Philippines after Marcos (20 years), Indonesia after Suharto (33 years), and Yugoslavia after Tito (50 years).

These nations enjoyed and presented an image of 'stability' under these leaders, as a myopic and self-serving world lavished praise on them, but it was a false stability achieved through suppression and repression of all democratic forces and movements and muzzling the press.

Strong undercurrents were brewing. As the Malay proverb goes: Air tenang jangan disangka tiada buaya (Still waters run deep). The rest is history. The Philippines is yet to recover from the Marcos' legacy while there's still no light at the end of the tunnel for both Indonesia and what is left of Yugoslavia. Tito's Croatia, for example, is no longer in the Yugoslavian Federation.

Mahathir's greatest disservice to Umno, his own party, the Malays and the nation, was to edge out his deputies Musa, Ghafar, Anwar and former finance minister Tengku Razaleigh under one public pretext or another. The main reason would have been to prevent any challenge to his continued stay in the prime minister's chair.

Privately, no doubt he was also thinking that these leaders presented a hindrance to his Vision 2020 plans for Malaysia and had to be forced out, in the 'interest' of the nation, and replaced by robots, yes men, sycophants and those who will not carry bad news to the emperor or otherwise make him feel particularly fallible.

But ultimately, it must be realised, that it is for the people and not any one individual to decide how the nation should be governed and shaped. Life isn't a static game. We have to take the bad and ugly, along with the good and beautiful. However, that doesn't mean putting up with an enforced "Utopia of a frying pan" for a very long period just to jump eventually into the "fires of Hell".

Mahathir may mean well but unfortunately his good intentions alone are not enough when the future and fate of millions are at stake. When it comes to the crunch, Malaysia's state of the art infrastructure alone is not enough to prevent a collapse of our economy.

Witness Ayuthia, Angkor Wat and Borobudur in the region and the Mayan, Aztec and Inca civilisations. Our history is just a microscopic dot in world history, indeed not even worthy of being a footnote in history.

The only way we can ensure a stable political system is to devise a mechanism whereby the ruling party is replaced every two terms or so and power rotates among at least three potential ruling parties.

In order to achieve this, we must outlaw the practice of forming coalitions before an election, as is the case with the ruling Barisan Nasional. The formation of coalitions should only be allowed after an election.

In this way, every party will get to place its candidates in as many seats as possible instead of being restricted to a certain number of seats.