How would Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad like his legacy to be remembered? According to Asiaweek , he said "Oh, I really don't care. In 40 years I'm not going to be around, and when you are dead, people will say nasty things about youIt doesn't make a difference to me. I just want to do what I can for my country while I'm alive."

Looks like he does not have to wait for as long as 40 years. It has already started (Kim Quek's The Mahathir Legacy ).

For example, the premier has been identified by NST as a master of modern economic development. For Malaysians old enough to compare the situation before and after Mahathir, they have seen a higher standard of living, bigger spread of the middle-class, greater access to educational opportunities and improved amenities like the Light Rail Transit and highways criss-crossing the country.

But more educational opportunities have not necessarily translated to higher standards of excellence in education or in work. Higher disposable income has not translated to greater spending power, as the ringgit declined against the currencies of developed countries of North America, Europe and nearer home to home, Singapore.

Malaysia's almost decade-long consistent achievement of 8 per cent growth prior to the East Asian financial crisis have been explained by Mahathir's detractors that "both Thailand and Indonesia had also enjoyed the same high GDP growth in the vicinity of 8 percent from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s. The main impetus of this growth was the high influx of foreign investment in this region. (Meaning that the boom years was not of Mahathir's making ).

When currency traders attacked Southeast Asian currencies in 1997, Mahathir defended the assault by imposing currency controls independent of IMF prescriptions, stabilised the situation and turned the economy around to record modest growth. Detractors have explained this modest recovery away by saying that it would have happened whether or not currency controls and peg were in place.

But surely the much-touted first world infrastructure erected under his administration are enduring physical accomplishments for future generations to see?

Legacies are not o­nly measured against impressive physical monuments like the Kuala Lumpur City Centre, the KL Tower and the Kuala Lumpur International Airport alone. Rather, it is measured against the intangibles.

In the aftermath of the currency crisis, Malaysian banks had to restructure some RM8.5 billion in debts owed by insolvent conglomerates, and the government had to set up special agencies like Danaharta, Danamodal, Khazanah to warehouse the deflated assets of deadbeat borrowers and to nurse financial wounds.

About two decades ago, the Mahathir administration brought about economic equity o­n the basis of race, but this was borrowed o­n the back of the New Economic Policy, at the expense of racial polarisation in the civil service, schools and tertiary institutions.

Besides racial polarisation, another outcome has been the race for religious authority. The power struggle that resulted in Anwar Ibrahim's downfall resulted in a shift of Malay cultural ground towards the comparatively more radical PAS. To compete against these encroachments, the race for Islamisation was intensified by the prime minister's proclamation of Malaysia as being already an Islamic state.

As Kim Quek said , "it was Mahathir who proposed the creation of the 'Malaysian race' practicing 'matured democracy' under his Vision 2020 concept. But what he does seems to be the exact opposite of what he says".

Mahathir inherited a political system with political parties identified o­n the basis of race. He has also to work within feudal political culture in which political loyalty and votes are given as an exchange for patronage protection and largesse to those who organised the support.

For Mahathir to bring about a change of mindsets that can take aeons, will require sheer will power, that he has got, and time - without regime change and leadership challenges that he hasn't got. When leadership challenges surface every now and then, o­ne has to take steps backward to appeal to race and religion to buttress the security of o­ne's position.

So that is the paradox in the process of the noble ends o­ne sets as a leader for a nation, the necessary end result is subverted and overtaken by the means. Mahathir has traits of a great leader but the tragedy is that in the process of fighting to stay long enough to implement the good things (economic development, peace and social justice), the necessary end result appears that many of the unintended such as twin spectres of polarisation and extremism) appear to have overtaken.

Now comes the controversial part: Have the critics of Mahathir legacy balanced this consideration and are they sure that given such a political and cultural milieu, others could do more or better considering and balancing all pros and cons the administration has brought about?

When we look at the necessary end result of tailored suit, and adjudge it as not as good as we wish it, do we to disparage the qualifications and legacy of the tailor without looking at the cloth that limits him in the first place?

Kim Quek asked if there is any reason why o­ne should object to the concluding sentence in the Economist 's report, which reads: "The greatest service Dr Mahathir could render Malaysia after all these years would be to retire, full stop"?

Yes, there is o­ne at least for his supporters: he should be allowed to continue as long as he could to rectify (to borrow deputy premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's watchword) the very third world mentality that he may have - rather than eradicate - aggravated in the rush to erect the first world infrastructure in the country. For he alone, more than any other political contender, evinces the necessary personal traits of leadership to change it.

For detractors, the argument is simple: if o­ne cannot improve the "intangibles" over two decades of rule and instead have exacerbated them, what good is there in more time? The greatest service indeed is to pass the baton o­n. Full stop. By retiring, he appears to agree with his detractors.