I wish there are more such thoughtful and quality debates such as Chooi's letter Check and balance, not leadership duration, stops anarchy in our Malaysian public discourse.

I have travelled extensively in our part of the world and keenly observe what does and does not work in each society.

As the writer rightly points out, there is no single perfect or fool-proof political framework for any one country and even if there is, it may not be suited for a particular country all the time. The dynamics of any evolving society necessitates a framework sufficiently dynamic to keep up with the changing times.

There was a time when some, particularly in the West, would have us believe that economic prosperity only follows political liberalisation even when the experience of almost all East Asian societies and even the development of Western societies all but disprove such notions.

The question naturally arises whether political liberalisation, with its attendant democratic checks and balances, is an end in itself, especially if it is shown to be inimical to economic prosperity.

The example of the Philippines is a classic study. Ferdinand Marcos is now widely accepted to be a malevolent dictator. Under him, Filipinos were politically and economically repressed. Post-Marcos, Philippines freed its people politically and yet, as recently as this week — some 15 years after Marcos' overthrow — a survey reveals that a majority of Filipinos classify themselves as poor and hold out dim prospects for their own economic improvement. Why?

It is in vogue once again for a wide cross-section of Filipinos to blame the Philippines' almost wholesale replication of the US political model, down to the most elaborate system of checks and balance, as the culprit.

I personally will not go to such an extent but I take the Philippine case as a signal warning to people everywhere not to get carried away with too much idealism. The idealists are usually the educated minorities in any society who easily make the mistake of thinking everyone else will be similarly governed by his/her own powers of rational thought.

Their sense of idealism was not sufficiently jolted even by the election of someone from the make-believe world of the movies into the serious and real job of the Philippine presidency until that president proved in no time to be an utter disaster!

What the Estrada presidency in the Philippines highlighted was that malevolent personalities can still thrive by exploiting and manipulating thevery system of checks and balance to throw well-meaning reformers off-balance, if not derailing them completely. They were hugely aided, of course, by the vast pool of impoverished Filipinos easily tempted by even small bribes to do their devious bidding.

Many remind me that Malaysia is not the Philippines. Accepted. But I also happen to believe that personalities or systems aside, the progress of any single nation hinges, to a rather significant degree, on luck.

It is our good fortune to enjoy the relative stability of a benevolent leader who has been able to withstand all manner of idealistic or malevolent vested interests and ambitious deputies and remain remarkably focused on the task he set for himself and his nation.

It is difficult to imagine that someone like our current prime minister can be replicated in the future but shouldn't we be thankful that after him, there will perhaps no longer be a need for Malaysia to have another leader like him?

I, therefore, unreservedly dismiss any notion that no thinking and rational Malaysian can or should support a political system heavily dependent on one single leader no matter how good that individual leader may be.

For developing societies, placing sole and blind trust in just a system alone may well be the ultimate death-trap.