Leaders of other Barisan Nasional component parties who commended Dr Mahathir for his voluntary passing of the baton of powere did not know how the event will exert pressure and richochet on themselves to step down as well.

For it will be inevitably asked : if the Prime Minister who has been extolled by them as a statesman of international stature and a great leader of the country can willingly at the pinnacle of popularity relinquish power, why can't equally long serving but lesser mortals at the helm of their parties follow his 'leadership by example'?

MCA's numero ono Dr Ling Liong Sik is already feeling the stirrings of this call for long serving party leaders to step down and its wake, I am sure, the MIC and Gerakan chiefs will it feel it too.

Even those in the opposition will not escape this tide of expectation. PAS' spiritual advisor, Nik Aziz Nik Mat has begun to muse whether it is now time for him to call it quits as Kelantan Menteri Besar ( The Star , June 29h). Next to do 'soul searching' might be the DAP national chairperson Lim Kit Siang.

This feeling that leaders that have dominated and overstayed for a long while should go, and that this going has got nothing to do with their capability of serving but it is just to give others of equal if not better capability a chance to serve, will be infectious and spread epidemically like a virulent strain of flu.

Maybe it is about time as Malaysia progresses and the people become more educated and matured. We are moving away from dependence on a strong benevolent autocrat for governance and collective welfare.

We are shifting it to democratic institutions (parliament, judiciary, civil service and an executive checked by interest groups and NGOs) to perform the functions of governance and provide continuity. We expect higher standards of these institutions. With these institutions buttressed, our tolerance of regime change becomes higher.

The reliance on institutional strength is the first step to rid the scourge of corruption and misallocation of economic resources bedeviling the coterie of cronies surrounding long serving leaders.

The whims and fancies, strength and weakness and idiosyncrasies of personalities should impact less on the political structure; instead the voice of the people expressed democratically through the checks and balance of institutions should assume greater significance.

It also makes sense that the political stability of the country and the orderliness of regular citizenry's lives should continue and not be unduly disrupted when the nation's prime minister or a party's president that has shown capability and become popular is suddenly incapacitated by ill health or ousted from office from carrying on.

Just as in nature, so too in the case of politics, a vacuum will be abhorred. There should not however exist a vacuum when institutional structures, and not charismatic, popular or strong personalities (subject to vicissitudes of political fortunes) are relied upon for continuity to serve the people.

In some way, if Dr Mahathir's voluntary stepping down could lead by example others in similar position to likewise do the graceful and along those lines make the point of institutional structures being more important than personalities in governance, this will be a munificent bequest by way of political legacy from his regime that has ironically be identified to stand for the opposite.