But the good doctor has forgotten that is the fate of two of his three predecessors, and he was not averse to, as Pak Lah is now, to see the last of them. He was part of the cabal directed by the only prime minister to die in office, Tun Abdul Razak, to denigrate, harass and sideline Malaysia's first prime minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman Putra. The story of that murky episode in Malaysian history has yet to be revealed but when it is, his name will figure prominently in it. This cabal included those who rose to great heights in the three decades since, protected from, the Tengku's wrath by his successor.

TO MARK THE PRIME Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's first year in office, the mainstream newspapers bend over backwards to praise him with banal platitudes when it should be taking a critical look at his stewardship. The Star, to mark the event, asked its readers to guess what his favourite likes are, a sort of political reality show. We now know, why we know not, that his favourite role model is Tun Abdul Razak; his favourite historical Malaysian personality, Tengku Abdul Rahman; his favourite drink, warm water ('air suam'); his favourite food, rice porridge; his favourite snack, keropok; his favourite colour, blue; his favourite song, Bahtera Malaysia; his favourite movie, My Fair Lady; his favourite ice cream flavour, vanilla; his favourite holiday destination, Japan. The 8,000 readers who responded guessed right half his choices. What is that meant to prove?

What mattered was the annointment of Pak Lah. It did not work as planned. His advisers pushed his luck so far that the delegates came to the assembly determined to take control of their vote. An informal committee of delegates, from Sabah, spread the word to vote into the supreme council only those who hold no position in government; another to vote against any candidate who bribed delegates; still another to boycott any candidate overtly identified with Pak Lah; besides the two groups backing Pak Lah and the deputy president, Najib Abdul Razak. No one talked about it, but amidst the talk of Anwar Ibrahim and vote-buying, this raised some excitement.

But Malay cultural and feudal tradition demanded an unchallenged leader; if he is, he gives way so as not to split the party. When the then Dato' Abdul Razak, in 1954, defeated the then Dato' Ismail Abdul Rahman, he became deputy prime minister on independence, and the latter opted out of UMNO politics to be first ambassador to the US and UN, returning to mainstream politics and the cabinet on his return, resigned over the National Language Act 1967, to return to the cabinet again after the May 1969 riots and at Tun (as he then was) Razak's request.

No one wants a deputy who would, and could, in a trice sideline his leader. Malaysia's founding prime minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, an amiable yesterday's man catapaulted to be prime minister, had the efficient and administratively capable Tun Abdul Razak as deputy. They worked well after a fashion, the older man looking after political issues and the younger minding the store. Years later, when the Tengku returned to centre stage after being driven into the wilderness in the wake of the 1969 racial riots, he would say that Tun Razak's problem was that he did not have a "Tun Razak" to help him.

The first, Dato' Sir Onn Jaffar, walked out of UMNO when his plan for a multiracial UMNO was challenged; the second, Tengku Abdul Rahman, resigned rather than face a challenge after the 1969 general election and the riots which followed. The third, Tun Abdul Razak, died before his time, but if he had to leave, he would gracefully than challenge his opponents. The fourth, Tun Hussein Onn, when challenged for the presidency in 1978, his wings were clipped, and he made a dignified exit three years later. The fifth, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, decided that this was not how it should be done, insisted he is president if he won by a single vote, and defended his ground so thoroughly and forcefully, and put in place rules and regulations that made it all but impossible for anyone to challenge him.

In 1959, however, with the Alliance in shambles, UMNO in shock, and MCA in a bind over its new president, the worrying activities of the anti-Koumintang and leftist SF, the Tengku decided something drastic had to be done. He resigned, and for the duration his deputy, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, led the country. The MCA crisis split its members, much as now, with significant sections aligning with UMNO. With the MCA headed for a split, as it appeared then, many of these leaders swiftly aligned themselves with UMNO and the Tengku. If the ruling coalition could have lost in the past 11 general elections, it would have been in 1959. So, the Tengku's panic was understandable. He is at his best in a crisis. In resolving it, he established two important political realities for the Chinese: that no MCA leader could survive without UMNO support; and the MCA should work for a national party that is not an agglomeration of warlords.

UMNO, THE ONLY POLITICAL party that matters in the governing National Front (BN) coalition, does not like young men in a hurry. It does not matter if he is a protege of the Prime Minister, as the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, or the son-in-law of the Prime Minister, Mr Khairy Jamaludin. It is a matter of time when the party would unite against them. The last time a young man jumped the queue was in 1976, when the Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, died, and his son, now the deputy prime minister, was press-ganged to stand for his Pekan parliamentary constituency in the by-election. There was a near-revolt in UMNO over that. The rules were hastily redrawn: henceforth UMNO members must serve an apprenticeship of five years before he could contest in state and parliamentary elections. UMNO, especially after its leaders' virtual coup that led to the 13 May racial riots and the later sidelining of all political parties but UMNO in the ruling heirarcy, had begun to atrophy, as muscles when not exercised. The leaders did not want challenge, and imposed creative rules to prevent it, the most creative under the former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. Leaders were told they must await their turn, that Buggins' Turn rules, and any jumping the queue must face the consequences, however unpalatable. The most serious criticism hurled at Dato' Seri Anwar now is that he was a young man in a hurry, and UMNO does not like that.

Malaysia is caught in its own machinations. With good reason. In the 1970s, Malaysia was a transhipment point when Libya transferred weapons and cash to the Moros in southern Mindanao. They were invariably transhipped on 17 December every year in the 1970s, a week before Christmas, so that the arms could arrive in Mindanao with little fuss and official intrusion. Tun Abdul Razak, Malaysia's second prime minister, tacitly supported it, and the conduit was the Sabah chief minister of the day, Tun Datu Mustapha bin Datu Harun. News of this was well kept under wraps, but the discovery of a US$1 million Citibank draft from its Hong Kong branch to Tun Mustapha, raised more questions than answers. The money was widely believed then to be of Libyan origin, and it caused the same confusion in Kuala Lumpur in the 1970s as now. At the time, a Belgian television journalist went to Mindanao and shot some good footage of the Mindanao rebels in action, including shooting down of a Philippine Air Force fighter plane. I did the English voice-over for it, and we travelled to Tripoli in 1976 and to Europe two years ago to market it. NBC TV bought it, and aired a five-minute segment on its regular news programme.

WHEN A NATION FORGETS its history, when the only acceptable view is of the Prime Minister of the day, when the old agreements not worth the paper on which it is written, when history is rewritten to reflect current political orthodoxy, with the view that the past is best forgotten, it has the combustible ingredients for disaster. Twelve years after independence, the 13 May racial riots broke out, one that on reflection was one waiting to happen, when two xenophobic communities, the Malays and the Chinese, fought for political supremacy. What caused it had to do with a typical Malay political quarrel: the deputy prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, felt that it he did not become prime minister soon, some one else was waiting in the wings. The relationship between the prime minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, and Tun Razak, had soured. The Chinese demand, backed by the hartal in Penang, in 1967, for English to continue as official language beyond the ten years guaranteed at independence, provided the spark.

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