LCH's letter Hard time for PM's successor is insightful in that it points out the essence of political problem now confronting Malaysia. The ruling elites are aging but still believe that they will live forever. On this self-evidently wrong assumption, many decisions affecting the country and the people have been made with impunity.

Look at the newspapers everyday: the prime minister, all his senior ministers, the speaker of the Dewan Rakyat, the president of the Dewan Negara, think-tanks, top editors of the mainstream media like the New Straits Times and top leaders of Umno, MCA, MIC, Gerakan and SUPP are all ageing or long-serving men and women who have no more new ideas or new spirit.

True, there are youth wings and youth organisations, but they are either limited in number or power, or too subservient to their aging masters.

The main agenda of the old guards is not innovation, reform or progression, but merely the preservation of their existing interests and legacies. They tend to be backward-looking and to glorify the past. Youthful creativity and innovation are decried as 'rebellion' or 'anti-establishment'.

Only obedient, subservient and opportunistic youths are 'groomed' so that they could act as rear guards to protect the interests and legacies of the aging elites.

However, for the country to be entrusted to these young clones of the old elites is dangerous. Inheriting the antiquated paradigms, manners, cultures, modes of thinking, habits, ethos and ways of doing things from their outmoded mentors, the future leaders will be ill-equipped to manage changes, either technical or political, in the fast-changing world.

Without having to grow up by competing with their peers in a wider society and world, the 'clones' protected and 'promoted' in the 'select groups' will be devoid of the mental and psychic abilities to cope with challenges from their peers in the civil and non-elite societies. The mental and psychic abilities to manage complicated and multifaceted human relations in an increasing globalised, modern and multicultural society.

Seen from this more structural and longer term perspective, I must say that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, while commendable for bringing material development to the nation, has failed miserably and pathetically in managing a proper generational transition not only in Umno and BN, but also in the larger society.

Mahathir should not have destabilised the society by sacking his former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, and purging his young supporters from the party and the government. While non-Umno Malaysians could not care less about the party, the psychologically contagious effect of the Anwar saga is that old men and women in every sector and corner of the society are 'emulating' the grand old man.

Everywhere and everyday, Malaysians are engaged in silent generational wars in other ruling parties, opposition parties, business offices, universities and schools, bureaucracy and media organisations.

While men and women in their 60s or older refuse to retire, younger generations of Malaysians in their 20s and early 30s are impatient for their turns. This is exacerbated by the middle-aged people in their late 30s and 50s who find themselves hemped in between the two groups. It is time to remove the blocks in front so that the generational traffic could move in its natural manner, sequence and speed.

Failure or delay to do so would only cause more widespread social unease or even unrest among both the middle-aged and younger generations of Malaysians who strongly feel that their opportunities and lives are daily being wasted by selfish, vain and power-crazy old men and women.

Another possible scenario would be social stagnation and the dampening of social morale due to the lack of social mobility and progress.

Indeed, time and tide wait for no man. It is time for a drastic, radical and even revolutionary change of the generational order of our society and power structure so that the nation could renew itself at this critical time in human history and world society.