So we have two suggestions from BN: Fly the flag in the month of August to show your patriotism and nationalism, and lose your citizenship if you do not vote in three consecutive elections. In other words, a Malaysian scrupulously could follow the tourist minister's diktat to fly the national flag in August every year and yet be deprived of his citizenship. It does not make sense. Nor would it. But it happens every time the government decides it must show it means business. It decided to clean up the municipal councils, and targetted one, the Ampang Jaya muncipal council, and had to scuttle that soon enough because the corruption alleged fell at the foot of the Selangor UMNO mentri besar and an UMNO state executive councillor. This latest farce is aimed at the non-Malay by threatening to remove his citizenship if he did not vote in three consecutive elections. The import of that has struck home. So the BN backtracks. As it has done whenever it is challenged.

The newspapers concentrate, when it suits them, on petty corruption and write about it for weeks. It is one way of lulling the people that something is done about it. The corruption reported is at the level the people begins to relate to. And applaud them all the way. I had an email the other day to which I did not reply - I do not to anyone who believes in criticism behind a smokescreen - in which he accused me of criticising the cronies of the establishment for the damage they are responsive for in the Malaysian body politic. Look at the good works the likes of Tan Sri Vincent Tan and T. Ananda Krishnan do: the number of child-care centres, the occasional scholarships they give, their concern for the underdog. This writer's focus is on the lollies he gets, not the widespread damage the crony giver causes the country. When the government takes an interest in rooting out corruption, as in the Ampang Jaya muncipal council recently, the problem for it all is at whose feet corruption cannot be seen to fester, in the case the mentri besar of Selangor and a state executive councillor.

But every accusation of corrupt practice in a BN-controlled state inevitably leads to the mentri besar. The allegations against the Ampang Jaya municipal council in Selangor is only one: one could multiply that by hundreds and still not get to the problem. But he insists this 'mindset' - he does not clarify if it refers to allegations against him or to all in high office - 'must be corrected before they get to a point of no return'. These accusations come from the 'mulut orang melayu' in the BN and Opposition parties.

Then there is one appointment both the MIC and PPP presidents are upset about: the appointment of Dato' M. Kayveas as deputy minister in the Prime Minister's department. The MIC president is unhappy the party is left out, the PPP president that he did not his minister in local government and housing. After all, he did, in his considered impassionate neutral view, brilliantly highlighted corruption in the Ampang Jaya municipal council. Why is he now swats flies in the Prime Minister's department. For one, in his publicity-seeking rush to contain corruption, he laid it at the feet of senior UMNO leaders. That is verboten, and inimial to his political health. Did he not know the natural progression for a BN politician who wants to swat corruption is to swat flies? Or if he is important enough, he gets to swat those flies in Sungei Buloh. That he is where he is shows both how lucky and how unimportant he is in the BN scheme of things. He should count himself lucky if he was transferred to Sungei Buloh after a sparring match, when blindfolded and manacled, by no less than the Inspector-General of Police. There is only one problem. He would be forgotten by the people at large, as he would soon be in his new position.

This scandal comes amidst the controversy over the issuing of a casino licence in Pahang to a crony, who then misused it by expanding on it to turn the one-armed bandits into a virtual casino. The National Front (BN) government, in its attempt to bring a moral solidity to one which has forgotten its meaning, finds itself grasping for air as more examples of moral decadence challenges its survival. The inquiry into corrupt practices in the Ampang Jaya municipal council was encouraged until it reaches the doors of prominent UMNO politicians. The spate of illegal CDs, once confined to those on sale without proof of its authenticity and to PAS political messages, now takes on a wider front: and includes pornographic CDs. The more so when it implied that UMNO members 'acted' in them.

IT TAKES LITTLE TO CHANGE matters around. What afflicts the Ampang Jaya municipal council is correction. As more details are revealed, it was more: the Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Seri Mohamed Khir Toyo, and a senior state executive councillor, are dragged in. And other municipal councils. The Anti-Corruption Agency raids the two men's homes and offices, and of their relatives. Then as quickly the focus changed. It is not corruption in Ampang Jaya, but that the enforcement officer, a retired army captain turned taxi driver, who did not reveal his bankruptcy, as required by civil service rules. A committee is set up and finds him guilty, and he is quickly dismissed. The corruption charges are referred to the Anti-Corruption Agency for no purpose than that no further action would be taken. Aadminitrative honour is satisfied. All is well. Corruption in Ampang Jaya? What corruption?

THE MENTRI BESAR OF SELANGOR, DATO' SERI Mohamed Khir Toyo, kept silent when the Malay Mail unravelled corruption in the Ampang Jaya municipal council, acted only when it was laid at his door. The council's enforcement chief, Capt. (rtd) Abdul Kudus Ahmad, allegedly accepted RM70,000 a month from 'tontos' (lookouts) for hawkers selling illegal CDs and similar banned items; and RM600,000 a month from other sources. When push came to shove, Dr Khir sacked the man not for the allegations but for not declaring he was a bankrupt when he was employed. That in his book is more serious crime than the garden variety corruption the man indulged in. Now he comes in with his new broom: sack the lower staff for corruption.

WHEN THE SELANGOR MENTRI BESAR, DATO' Seri Mohamed Khir Toyo, dismissed the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council's enforcement chief, Capt. (rtd) Abdul Kudus Ahmad, it revealed not a desire of one to correct the wrongs of the other, nor the seriousness with which allegations of corruption and wrongdoing are addressed by those in authority, but a crass political act. The deputy local government and housing minister, Dato' M. Kayveas, jumped into the fray to show how "concerned" a politician he is when all else believe they are in office to line their pockets, and at the behest of whoever egged him on. This crisis is orchestrated for a purpose. For the nonsense that goes on - it does not mean that one dismissal would cure the rot - in Ampang Jaya is replicated, in more or less severity, in every municipal council in the country.

The Majlis Perbandaran Ampang Jaya (MPAJ or the Ampang Jaya Municipality), like municipalities in Malaysia, is known for its tardiness, incompetence, file-shuffling, arrogance and a well-earned reputation for arrogance. Apply for permission to extend your kitchen or your bathroom, and you wait for months, if not years, for it. We know why. You are expected to call on the officer and offer him 'a little something', and if it is what he had in mind, you get your permission. If you do not want to be caught for bribery and corruption, there is the helpful 'runner' who would do it for you for a fee. If you would rather not, it is a futile wait. Some throw caution to the winds to build it anyway.

IT HAD TO COME. The heavy rains of recent months would have put at risk expensive houses at the foothills, or on the slopes, of shaved hills, with nature, and bylaws, ignored. The Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ), in suburban Kuala Lumpur, rises up in high dudgeon when a tragedy strikes, but a flurry or two later, goes back to inaction. The Highland Tragedy ten years ago, in its bailliwick, should have alerted it to the dangers. One of two skyscraper residential towers collapsed when earthworks at the top of the hill unleashed forces of nature that brought it down, killing residents. Nothing came out of that. A minor player in that was blamed, but little else was done.

Can UMNO's irrelevance-to-come be reversed? Probably not. Not so long ago, I attended a 'kenduri' in Bentong in West Pahang, once a stolid BN and UMNO stronghold. The host I had known to be an UMNO stalwart there. The guests were all the usual bigwigs of a small town, all civil serants or UMNO politicians, many I had known for years. To my shock and surprise, every one there had left UMNO for PAS, or joined PAS on retiring from the civil service. UMNO there, as far as I could note, is a shell, has been for years. One understands why the Pahang mentri besar, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakub, was so incensed with PAS at a byelection in Bentong, his home town. There is another frightening statistic UMNO knows and fears: the preferred political party of choice amongst Malay civil servants from the very top to the very bottom is PAS and the National Justice Party (Keadilan). When PAS opened a branch in Ampang Jaya two years ago, it attracted several thousand members on the day. On many government committees, including the most sensitive, sit unabashed supporters of either party. In some departments, like the Prime Minister's, senior civil servants do not trust their office boys to deliver sensitive papers; they do it themselves.

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