THE SELANGOR MENTRI BESAR, Dato' Seri Mohamed Khir Toyo, will have no National Front (BN) candidate if the Anti-Corruption Agency finds his or her background murky. The candidates are not selected yet, but the ACA, superbly efficient when it wants to or political duty calls, have found them all to be clean as a whistle. No one has asked how a political party could ask a supposedly independent government agency to do its dirty work in front of a general election. Does this mean that if the ACA does it for Selangor, it does for all BN controlled states? Is this then the first step to require all candidates, in Parliament and the states, to obtain an ACA clearance before they could contest? But it is also to impress voters of the strict selection process of candidates, but it does not fool the voter. It is a silly move as can be. But selecting candidates is a nightmare for the BN president and Malaysian prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. He is heir to a flawed system which he cannot change, that those who should be out must be in for his political safety. The public anger at some of the candidates is real. So subterfuges like this to show all is well. Expected to be candidates are several whose rightful place is the Sungei Buloh prison, but if that were so, the BN edifice collapse.

The former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, wanted this election held before he retired. He understood well the Malay alienation, and decided that if the BN had the Chinese support, and swept Sabah, Sarawak and Johore, it could hold on to power with its two-thirds majority. But he could not call it earlier because Sabah BN and Sabah UMNO threatened to split asunder, as the local warlords maintained the pressure. So a general election planed for August last year was put forward until he could not longer hold it. His successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, had to decide when. He is still UMNO's acting president, he needed to strengthen his national credentials to be elected as UMNO president in his own right. He needed his own team, and so he decided upon General Election first.

It would have continued this way but for how the then Prime Minister, Dato' Seri (now Tun) Mahathir Mohamed, destroyed and humiliated in 1998 his chosen successor, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, now reeling in pain in his cell in Sungei Buloh prison. It caused the first major shift in Malay thinking since independence. The Malay, with his acute sense of justice and fair play, and shocked beyond belief, moved away from UMNO's political and cultural protection. He remains on the sidelines waiting to see who the winner is before he commits himself to that side. UMNO and the coalition it leads, BN, has tried its best to wean them back, without success. It is this that enabled the Opposition political parties, especially PAS, to make headway. The Malay vote is split, and the BN cannot depend on it anymore. Hence in the general election, all focus is on the Chinese vote, now solidly with the BN even if the leaders of the Chinese political parties are in bad odour with the new Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. UMNO's strong-armed control of the BN political partners has no principle behind it, but a vague sense of political unity which is not sustained with reasoned thought. This, to be fair, is not with BN alone. Every political party, in BN and the Opposition, are guilty of it. In the opposition it is not as critical since they do not hold power, and it has the luxury of internal debate. Even then, a few, like the DAP, does not allow too much of it.

MALAYSIAN NEWSPAPERS TRY HARD to impress readers they report fairly and evenly. Like every major newspaper in the mainstream around the world, they lean to whoever is in power, assiduously tilt to their masters' voice, while turning in a neat profit for its corporate and political owners and controllers. In Malaysia, every one of them are owned or linked to the National Front (BN), and are, without a murmur, party organs, a sort of mainstream Harakah, when the world is dissected through its prism. By and large, they pull it off, though in recent years, its decidedly political stance is challenged. What caused it is the schism within the Malay community over how the BN government thumped its collective nose at Malay culture and destroyed, against Malay feudal beliefs, one of its chieftains. The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, assures us he is a nobody now, history in fact, deserves to be where he is, all of which is dutifully reported in the mainstream media, but not the jailed politician's.

Ahmad Yazid

That on that day the second leg of the F-1 motor race would be held in central Selangor is ignored. It would disrupt balloting in the area. But the EC, which wants more people to vote, is oblivious of it. A coalition in office for nearly 50 years has to make sure the Opposition should not be given a chance, that impediments of all kinds be laid before it. That is the mindset. The new regime of Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi does not change it. It cannot. There is too much at stake for a new leader to make drastic changes that could redound on him. The BN should have insisted upon a new slate to reflect the changes Pak Lah has in mind, but he has done little of that. The same tired old faces are in attendance. Men and women who should have retired years ago remain candidates. Dropping a candidate is seen as a great sacrifice. In other words, little changes.

PARLIAMENT IS DISSOLVED, AS are all state assemblies but Sarawak's Council Negri. The National Front (BN) government had played a cat-and-mouse game with itself on when it would be called since Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became Prime Minister. The Opposition this time read the signs early and began preparations for general election in January, earlier than BN. So much so that it surprised UMNO leaders when Parliament was dissolved. The Election Commission would meet soon to decide on the polling day. The originally widely believed date of 21 March is out: on that day the second leg of the F-1 motor racing season is held in Kuala Lumpur. It would be a few days or so after that. It is Pak Lah's first general election since he became prime minister in November. He needs to do well to strengthen his chances, and cut out all opposition, when UMNO chooses its president at its annual general assembly in June.

SMALLER PARTIES IN THE National Front (BN) are meant to be seen and not heard. Their sole role, especially if they do not have any seats in Parliament or the state assemblies, is to praise and pledge fealty to BN. Nothing more is expected of it. If they behave, their leaders would be given a title from one of the states, and be made to feel important. So, when one political party decides to rebuild itself into a larger party, and demands what it should not, then it is quashed. But the BN cannot do that now. There is too much at stake. It needs all the non-Malay support it can get, since the Malays are not as enamoured of it as it once wasBut that it happened is yet another sign that the old rules on how the BN orders itself should be reviewed, or it could lead to more political heartaches in the coming years. So when the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, planned his general election, he had first to allot the seats.

As the 2004 general election approached, he is beset with more electoral difficulties. PAS has made strong inroads into Pekan, has three candidates ready, any one of whom could cause an electoral upset. Into the fore comes the KeADILan youth chief, Mr Ezam Mohamad Nor. He wants to stand against Dato' Seri Najib in Pekan. He is allowed to since the Election Commission has decided that since his conviction and jail sentence for an offence under the Official Secrets Act will bar him for contesting an election only after all appeals are disposed off. PAS has no objection. But Dato' Seri Najib has other difficulties too. The political rivalry between the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and Dato' Seri Najib, for all the apparent cordial warmth in public, is now reflected, so Dato' Seri Najib's supporters claim, in a not-so-subtle campaign to unseat him.

The UMNO acting deputy president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, who was midwife to the defections, realised he had made a mistake, and told his staff the dozen are "useless" and of "no worth to UMNO". The other 58 were non-entities even in KeADILan and helped only to add to the numbers. Several in fact had resigned from the party or had not renewed their membership and technically were not KeADILan members. So that fell flat. UMNO needs a high profile defector. The New Straits Times yesterday (28 February 2004, p7) reported the KeADILan vice-president and Kedah state assemblyman for Lunas, Mr Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, could well defect to UMNO. This is why he had met the Prime Minister and UMNO president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Sources told the NST he had "declared to Abdullah that he was ready to jump ship", that he is "said to be disillusioned" with the Opposition.

How could it when the people of Malaysia have returned it to office with more than two-thirds majority in every general election todate? So how could he be released without the Government losing face. I asked him if BN would release him three or four days into the campaign to turn the tide in its favour ever more dramatically. He would not answer, but it was clear from his facial expression that could well be one final, desperate option if the election would result in a two-thirds majority but which would not allow the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, to keep his job. Should it happen, the Malay vote would almost certainly swing to the BN in the final days of the campaign. One hopes Dato' Seri Anwar has his instincts well-honed, as it has so far, to reject this blatant electoral bribe and insist it be decided after the election. If the decision to release is made, it is only the timing that matters.

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, kept all guessing if he would attend the G-15 meeting in Caracas this week. Yes, he would; no, he would not; no, he would not. It is a straight forward decision, given that general elections are in the offing for him to have made a firm decision, and stick to it. But almost every major decision since he took office is mired in this doubt. He wants the suspense to unnerve the Opposition, but it does come out that way. It is of a leader in perennial doubt. He is capable of better. He can be firm when he wants to, and in the years I have known him, that has been his trait. He would, like Tun Hussein Onn, ponder over the problem for long, but once he has decided, he is firm. That seems not so nowadays. It could be the pressure of work and his wife's debilitating illness. But he should step out of it. He made, let us not mince words, a mess of the anti-corruption drive and of his son's involvement at one end of the nuclear weapon blackmarket chain. He now faces the most important General Election the National Front (BN) ever.

THE GENERAL ELECTION IS AROUND the corner. Make no mistake about it. The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, cancels his attendance at the G-15 summit in Caracas, where the host, President Hugo Chavaez, faces a full-blown campaign to force him to step down. He is right to do that if there is the slightest doubt for his safety. But few believe it is why. The New Straits Times, in a front page story about it, says it fuels "further speculation" of an imminent general election. All cabinet ministers overseas are ordered to return to Kuala Lumpur by 29 February. A planned meeting of Sabah BN MPs and state assemblymen in Kota Kinabalu on 03 March is cancelled: they should instead concentrate on their constitutencies. The BN seat allocation committee discuss seat allocation its its member parties. The MCA has released its lists of do's and don't's for its elected representatives, those selected must be debt-free. This is already an article of faith in how the MCA runs its affairs that all, except those who have retired or stepped down, would pass the test, and we are promised there would be few new faces. The 2002 MCA peace plan to bridge the divide between its two mutually antagonistic factions failed abysmally, but those in charge insist that is an unacceptable libel. But is it not an accepted fact of political life in Malaysia that what is, is what we are told, not what is?

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, kicked off his slipping into office with a promise to go after the corrupt, however high and close to the levers of power, but after two high profile arrests, both Tan Sris, and a handful of civil servants, the campaign grinds to a spluttering stop. The de facto justice minister, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, announced, out of the blue, that 18 "big fish" are under investigation, not all would be brought to trial if only because the cases against them cannot be sustained in a court of law. This shifted attention from the anti-corruption drive to who could be amongst the dozen and a half men and women. That was not a long time coming. Two cabinet ministers, Datin Rafidah Aziz and Dato' Seri Nazri Aziz, denied they were, with Datin Rafidah promising to sue Opposition leaders if they dared target her. Several of them invited her to sue them. How she could succeed in her defamation beats me, even if the Malaysian courts have a well-earned reputation for expedience against the weight of the law. The Anti-Corruption Agency had investigated her, as numerous cabinet ministers, including seven National Front (BN) party leaders, but no further action was taken because the Prime Minister of the day, in this instance, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, would not allow prosecution to proceed. That is then taken as proof that those investigated are as pure as driven snow.

President George W. Bush and the CIA director, Mr George Tenet, said so in public: the SCOMI Precision Engineering (SCOPE) factory in Shah Alam is a link in the shadowy international trade in nuclear weaponry. Malaysia denied it. SCOPE invited foreign and local correspondents to visit its factory to see for themselves. A senior US official, Mr John Bolton, in Singapore, said Malaysia is not involved in this shadowy Pakistani-led network. That is enough for another round of self-congratulation in Malaysia. The curious thing is that no one accused Malaysia of it, only that SCOPE was. Malaysia looked for any straw that could clip the connexion between SCOPE and the Pakistani chain. For SCOPE is the subsidiary of a listed company, SCOMI, which is controlled by the only son of the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. If SCOPE had not been cleared of any wrongdoing, Pak Lah's political career could well be in the dumps. For it becomes clearer by the day that both the Pakistani and Malaysian governments were aware of the network and their respective roles, and is why no one is detained or punished.

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, was firm when he declared war on corruption. But it now looks more like President George Bush's disarrayed war on terror. It turns awry before one's eyes. A business man, a cabinet minister, a few middle level civil servants are arrested and charged in court for corruption. Another 18 VIPs await their turn in court. The minister in charge of justice, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, says most would be prosecuted, but some could not for want of convictable evidence. The cabinet is frightened sick of the policeman's knock, after what happened to a colleague, Tan Sri Kasitah Gaddam, and wants Pak Lah to slow down. One cabinet minister's house is raided while he is overseas. The market is rife with rumours of who next. The arrests though did not have the impact he expected from a society fed up of the creeping corruption around it and government inaction. The opposition dismissed it as an election gimmick. So did many a man on the street, he who would not be allowed to say their piece in the mainstream newspapers. No, says Pak Lah. It is a campaign to rid Malaysia of this evil, which to be fair until he took office did not officially exist. But there has been so many false starts and promises in the paste that it is taken as read that this is the new broom putting his mark while he still has the respect, as a new boy, of the street.

The Prime Minister, Dato' Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is horrified Mr Bush accuses his son's company of nuclear skulduggery. Did he not know that the Malaysian police, whom he ordered as home minister, to get to the bottom of this, has cleared SCOPE of criminal wrongdoing. So how could Mr Bush say those nasty things about his son's company? He will not therefore accept President Bush's accusations. He does not appear to have thought through this. He should distance himself from it. Malaysia does not have to justify its actions to the world because President Bush wants it to. He must edge the country back to what it should be. For a start, he should let the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, to handle it. He should move on.

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is caught in a crisis of his own making. A Mahathir crony and a once prominent business man, Tan Sri Eric Chia, is arrested three days ago and charged with corruption committed when he was head of Perwaja Steel in the mid-1990s. This morning (12 February 2004), the land and cooperative development minister, Tan Sri Kasitah Gadam, is charged for what he is alleged to have done in the late 1990s. Arrested with him is the Sabah land development board general manager, Dato' Wasli Mohamed Said. The two Tan Sris are released on bail of RM2 million and RM1 million respectively. Another Tan Sri is widely believed to be arrested soon. The Anti-Corruption Agency investigated one for nine years and the other for four, and produced them with Pak Lah wanted to prove his stated commitment to root out corruption. It raises more questions than answers.

ON 08 February 2004, Bapak Kamaludin aka Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, marked his first 100 days in office as Prime Minister; that day also marked the 101st birth anniversary of Bapak Merdeka aka Tengku Abdul Rahman Putra al-Haj. On that day, Malaysian newspapers and media stepped on each other to celebrate one and just as studiously ignore the other. There was not a single article to honour the man who made it possible for Bapak Kamaludin to be where he is. But, in the modern Malaysian view, he is history, dead and gone, and has no place in this Malaysia of the great and glorious Bapak Kamaludin. The Star's 48-page treacle of fawning praise caused many a reader to vomit, the story goes that Pak Lah's office tried to prevent it, but could the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting, who controls the newspaper, have allowed it? Long dismissive of the man, how could he now be seen not to praise him so effusively should his loyalty be suspect? Bapak Merdeka, whose stint as chairman of The Star, and as a star columnist in the paper, saved the paper from sure ruin by a government which felt it was too big for its boots, is ignored.

THE MORE THE MALAYSIAN government nervously insists it is not involved in Pakistan's plan to spread its nuclear technology to Muslim nations, the less it is believed. It is nervous because the blame is laid at the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's door. A company controlled by his son, Mr Kamaludin Abdullah, supplied the centrifuge units, to Pakistan specifications, to intermediaries who delivered it to Iran, Libya, perhaps others. After several days of stonewalling and embarrassment, Pak Lah is relieved that his son's company is cleared of "any wrongdoing or collaboration with illegal" international nuclear arms syndicates. He said "the outcome of police investigations proved that the allegations of certain segments of the foreign press against the company in Malaysia was unfounded", the New Straits Times reported on 09 February 2004. He did not want to say much, since his son's company is involved. But he has. He does not address if Malaysia is involved, only that he is "relieved" the foreign press reports on it is unfounded. Is that the issue in this affair? Why should wrong and false foreign press reports cause so much anguish if all was above board? And more important, why Malaysia? The centrifuge units can be used for a variety of applications, is widely used in the oil and gas industry in Malaysia, but is an important element in nuclear technology.

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