The delegates to the annual conference of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) were expecting a surprise-but not the one they got. Many thought that Mahathir Mohamad, the party leader and Malaysia's prime minister of 21 years, was about to call snap elections. The events of September nth had, after all, revived his flagging political fortunes by putting Malaysia's Islamist opposition on the defensive and distracting attention from the prime minister's autocratic excesses. Instead, in the conference's closing speech, Dr Mahathir dropped a much bigger bombshell: he was retiring, he said, from his party posts, and by extension as prime minister. Chaos ensued: the party's top brass mobbed the podium in dismay; Dr Ma-hathir-who still had a page left of his speech to go-was dragged away from the microphone reiterating his determination to quit, and a woman minister lost a heel in the melee. Many Malaysians, watching the drama on television, dismissed it all as a political stunt. Their suspicions deepened when senior UMNO members announced an hour later that they had prevailed upon the reluctant Dr Mahathir to change his mind and stay on. But on June 25th, in a press conference, Abdullah Badawi, Dr Mahathir's deputy, confirmed that the prime minister would indeed be stepping down―although not until October next year. With Dr Mahathir himself now on holiday in Italy, that statement seems likely to stand for the time being.
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