This was the problem of the former vice-president, Datuk K. Pathmanaban, a former high ranking civil servant, who entered politics at the instigation of the then prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak. But the MIC, particularly after Dato' Samy Vellu because president in 1978, isolated him. He died a few years ago as deputy minister. But what he wrote then of how the Indian community could be saved, was implemented by Dato' Samy Vellu. He now asks the Indian community to give him ideas for their betterment, which he looked with disfavour in the past if suggested to him. He keeps the Indian mass, most of whom work as labourers or are in the lower strata of Malaysian society, as a vote bank, keeping them as the British had when they were brought from India. The Malayalees in the labour lines came here because Palakad, Kozhikode and Cannoor was in the Madras Presidency, from which almost all Malayalee labourers in Malaya came from.

The days when leaders are selected in secret will continue, although those selected must expect public scrutiny more than in the past. They would not accept a man who feels Malaysians cannot do without him. But they would others who reach the top, even if the winner ignores them afterwards. Nor would the prime ministership be given those who await it to land in their laps. A nod from the leader would give one an inside track, but one has to want it badly to rise to the top. Those who want to be prime minister after Pak Lah prefer to have it fall on their laps. But leaders now in Malaysia do not arrive this way. Normally, the prime minister will designate his successor. That has been so since independence in 1957. But not now. More deputy prime ministers have dropped out than moved on. Tun Hussein came from the cold to be eventually prime minister. But Tun Abdul Razak, then prime minister, looked over him;. Tun Mahathir had four deputy prime ministers, the last of whom was Pak Lah to whom he reluctantly handed over. This will not be so now. There is a move to unseat him before the UMNO General Assembly next year.

Mr Khairy's blames Dato' Seri Khir Toyo for the floods in Shah Alam, and is to prevent him being challenged for the UMNO Youth presidency next year. But within UMNO he is seem as blaming an UMNO leader for mistakes the federal government has made. Why did not the federal government, run by his father-in-law, object to the exclusive housing project near Bukit Cheraka when it was being constructed? It cannot, because it has allowed the ridge above Taman Tun Abdul Razak, which Tun Mahathir when prime minister ordered stopped. The people look upon this attack of Datp' Seri Khir as infighting within UMNO. But the man who could challenge Mr Khairy in the UMNO elections is not Dato' Seri Khir but a deputy minister in the government linked to the deputy prime minister. What Mr Khairy has done is to ensure that the next prime minister is Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, with his deputy prime minister Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein, who is UMNO Youth leader. UMNO headquarters believe it, and so do many Malaysians up and down the country.

The New Straits Times has spawned The Malay Mail, Berita Harian, Harian Metro, among others. Every editor of the group is selected for his UMNO, not National Front, reliability. In recent years, the Prime Minister selects or okays the name. To make it easier to control, one of his close aides or man he trusts is made editor-in-chief. Tun Mahathir, when prime minister, had appointed latterly Dato' Abdullah Ahmad, a former MP from Kok Lanas, a former deputy minister and political secretary to the second Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak. Pak Lah appointed Dato' Kalimullah Hassan, and after he left, Dato' Hishamuddin Aun. Dato' Kalimullah promised the NST that no action would follow the publication of the cartoon, even if opposition parties, including PAS, NGOs and others have lodged a police report.

UMNO is therefore in a quandry. Tun Mahathir, after he retired as UMNO pesident, is still active in party politics. Although prime minister for 22 years, he is known in Malaysia and elsewhere not for the development Malaysia has made but as the man who sacked Dato' Seri Anwar. He must not let his rule go to waste because of it. He tried to bring a resolution at the UMNO General Assembly, through his friends, that would bar any who had left or expelled from UMNO to return. But it was hastily pulled out when it was found that the first four UMNO presidents were not members of UMNO Baru, as UMNO is formally known, when they died. UMNO today is a political party. The UMNO of old is a national movement that brought this country independence. UMNO today is trying to coast into office benefitting from UMNO the mass movement. The first four UMNO presidents - Dato' Sir Onn Jaffar (grandfather of the UMNO youth leader, Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein), Tengku Abdul Rahman, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein (father of the Dato' Seri Najib) and Tun Hussein Onn (son of Dato' Onn and father of Dato' Seri Hishamuddin) - were not members of the present UMNO. Tengku Abdul Rahman and Tun Hussein died during Tun Mahathir's prime ministership without ever becoming members of UMNO Baru; in fact, they fought hard, unsuccessfully, against it.

THE GRAVE HAS BEEN DUG at the National Mosque, and those who went to the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur were told it is for the former deputy prime minister, Tun Ghafar Baba, now in Pantai hospital where is undergoing medical treatment. He is weak. He has been out of ICU for about ten days, and looks poorly. He may not survive his stay in hospital, as Tun Razak did not in a London hospital, but the officials have decided he would not return from hospital alive. But the grave. ghoulishly, had to be dug three times because the length of the grave each time not correct. The National Mosque has graves for six who laboured for Malaysian independence. The former deputy prime minister, Tun Ismail bin Abdul Rahman, was first, followed by the two prime ministers, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein and Tun Hussein Onn. The man who should be there and the first prime minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, a member of the Kedah royal family, decided before this death that he would be buried at the royal family masouleum there. Another man, Dato' Sir Onn bin Jaffar, is not counted by the officials, and died a lonely death because he was in the opposition. His son, Tun Hussein Onn became prime minister, and his grandson, Dato' Hiihamudin, sits in the present cabinet. But Dato' Sir Onn, who was related to the Johore royal family, is buried at the royal masouleum in Johore Bahru.

UMNO Baru, or UMNO the political party, remained strong while Tun Mahathir remained its head and the country's prime minister. But even he was careful not to cross swords with the warlords. The two times he did - the Johore Bahru byelection, which emerged Dato' Shahrir as a stronger figure than he was then and could well challenge Pak Lah in 2007; and dismissing Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim as a sodomist but refusing to attend court on his trial. Dato' Seri Anwar went on a rampage that proved his crowd pulling status, and he has ruled out rejoining UMNO. Pak Lah would like him in, provided he would agree to become deputy prime minister. I have not spoken to Dato' Seri Anwar on this, but his returning to UMNO would spell danger to the UMNO Baru deputy president and Malaysian deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak. As I see it, Dato' Seri Anwar would come back into UMNO on a free pardon, which he would not apply for. This would enable him to challenge Dato' Seri Najib for the deputy presidency of UMNO Baru and be the next deputy prime minister. But in this scenario, Pak Lah has not considered that Dato' Seri Anwar may prove more dangerous than Dato' Seri Najib in the cabinet. The other version I had heard is that he would join PAS as its president. Either way, it would be a defeat for former UMNO president and Malaysian Prime Minister, who probably had heard of the moves to slander Dato' Seri Anwar once more. Whatever Dato' Seri Anwar might do about a legal action, Tun Mahathir had lost. Tun Mahathir would be remembered in history books for having sacked Dato' Seri Anwar, and not for which he should be. He fights a rear guard battle, at 79, to prevent this happening, but he is not leader of all he surveys now. But he represents a major political force against Pak Lah, and all those who does not like him automatically gravitate towards the ex-Prime Minister.

Tengku Abdul Rahman, the first prime minister and a younger son of the Sultan of Kedah, had the political and regal authority to have his way but, except in the expulsion of Singapore, scrupulously kept the rulers informed and got their consent before a constitutional move. His successor, Tun Abdul Razak, had little patience with the rulers, and how he forcibly alienated the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur from Selangor provided his successors the precedent to rewrite Malaysia's geography. He could get away with it because his power came in part as a powerful chief in his home state of Pahang.

I am attacked in the past fortnight by a young obviously well-educated Malay lady who insists that I, as a 'pendatang' (immigrant, which I am not), should not roil the Malay peace by raising issues that would. She hopes all pendatang would leave, for they are a nuisance. I asked her what would happen if the pendatang left, especially since every one of our five prime ministers were pendatang or had pendatang blood: Tengku Abdul Rahman (Thai), Abdul Razak Hussein (Bugis), Hussein Onn (Circassian-English), Dr Mahathir Mohamad (Indian), Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Sino-Indian). But her objection to me is that I am a non-Muslim pendatang.

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