In Malaysia, a middle class man united the people against the government. But the sacked deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, could not do it alone. The government, then led by Tun Mahathir Mohamed, could not contain the demonstrations that resulted and used force to break them up. But the middle class leaders went back when Tun Mahathir resigned. UMNO under Pak Lah, who took over, got the biggest majority ever in the general elections of 2004. Datuk Seri Anwar and his men now is not sure he will see the support of those days. But Pak Lah will make sure. His government withdrew the 30 sen petrol subsidy, and will withdraw other subsidies in the coming years. The middle class is angry, more move against the government, including members of UMNO and the National Front.

One example will suffice. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahm was listed as deputy prime minister on a government website, although he had been sacked seven years earlier from the government and UMNO, and had by then served his prison sentence. It was corrected after it was pointed out on the Internet. The government thinks it is lord of all it surverys, would not stoop, so it thinks, to get public advice, gets it wrong, and. recently, have had to amend it. But it believes it can never be wrong. So the law is passed, as it would after the Yang Dipertuan Agung has signed it. But the government explains this away by insisting it has not been gazetted and so it is not yet law. But if it has not been gazetted, how can it be amended?

About ten years ago, Syed Azman's helicopter carried a Malaysian business man, Tan Sri Yahya Ahmad, which crashed in the Pahang jungles, killing him instantly. The then deputy prime minister, Dato' Anwar Ibrahim, should have been on that flight 20 years ago, but he arrived late and missed it. Dato' Syed Azman then bought another. He has now lost two helicopters – a small price for the riches he has accumulated as a result. This is not unusual. When Tun Mahathir was prime minister, one Chinese business man took his then VIP guests on a boat ride. He made his staff follow the boat in another so that its passengers would be comfortable in the seas. He would not do that today for he gets nothing in return. In fact, this business man is forgotten today, as he was not in those days.

DATUK SERI ABDULLAH AHMAD Badawi – formally but known to all and sundry, even himself, as Pak Lah – is trapped. There are many reasons why: his son-in-law, the deputy prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, his office, UMNO headquarters, the non-Malay and non-Islamic parties in the ruling National Front, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, his political enemies. The withdrawal of RM4.4 billion annually, because his son-in-law wanted RM20 billion for his projects, led to Pak Lah being trapped. Mr Khairy Jamaluddin proposed to meet a RM20 billion shortfall in the 9th Malaysia Plan by raising the petrol price. He had earlier proposed RM200 billion worth of projects, RM20 billion less than the plan. Pak Lah dutifully told Malaysians the government could not afford the fuel subsidies. It was a spin. But how does Mr Khairy, known in some quarters as 'Satan's son', sit in on official committees, when he has no right to and is not in the government. make proposals he cannot and should not? Pak Lah has trapped himself because he allows his son-in-law to interfere in the administration of government.

No new thinking is allowed in the National Front. Only the leaders matter, even in UMNO, the leading party in the National Front. They talk of unity of the races but do their best in practice to keep them apart. Some of the more thoughtful in the National Front accept that this. The Malays are widely divided as the other races in the country, as between the peninmular and Sabah and Sarawak. In Sabah and Sarawak, Kuala Lumpur is seen in the two states as a coloniser, and the superficial unity there ignores the nationalism mostly on religion and race. UMNO one thought it needed to be in Sabah, and deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, took it there. Today, it is the dominant party in the government but the infighting in the National Front there, and non-Malay parties having accepted the UMNO shilling, it is Partai Keadilan Rakyat, whose eminence grise is the same Dato' Ibrahim, could be the party to drive UMNO into the opposition. The PKR has taken the precaution of allowing the Sabah unit complete independence from headquaters. People in PKR headquarters do not like this, but not the people in Sabah. PAS tried with UMNO and was rejected.

When Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim was arrested and jailed, the reformasi crowd that protested in the streets contained many who hated Tun Mahathir. The reformasi crowd grew big because many, though they loved UMNO, hated its leader, then Tun Mahathir. That support has lessened in the years since, as many reformasi members went back to UMNO. Today it is that united of hate which gives PKR its status. That remains its guiding principle these days, that many of its leaders are drifting back to UMNO. One finds few PKR members who are in it because it represents an opposition party. It can remain a political force if it controls a Malaysian state. It cannot in West Malaysia. But only in Sabah has it a local force. So, ten years after its formation, it is limited to winning Sabah and perhaps 15 parliamentary seats, out of nearly 200. That will take it nowhere.

Tun Mahathir Mohamed appointed four deputy presidents – Tan Sri Musa Hitam, Tun Ghafar Baba, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Dato' Seri Abdullah Badawi – and one, Dato' Seri Abdullah Badawi, succeeded him. Today, Tun Mahathir spends his waking hours trying to remove that man from his job. But even his former supporters in the civil service and business men have deserted him. The Malaysian is given a choice between the prime minister who has the future in front of him and a prime minister known for what he had done in the past. In Malaysia, the man of the hour is the custodian of all that is good in Malaysia. Tun Mahathir's expired when he resigned two years ago. But politics in UMNO is still conducted at the top. The leaders think the decision they made can be forced upon the members. It is not only UMNO leaders believe that, all National Front party leaders believe it.

This is what ordinary people face. Is Tun Daim an ordinary person? He says, in his press statement by was of justification that the then finance minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. But Dato' Seri Anwar could not rock the boat be rejecting Tun Daim's requests, particularly as work had started and he was watching Dato' Seri Anwar like a hawk. Tun Daim's political secretary, now the Jelai MP, and known as the wakil pos' for he won because of the 5,000 votes from the army camp there, had been double promoted to deputy minister of finance, to make sure Dato' Seri Anwar did not act on his own. Tun Daim also says that the cabinet agreed with him on his projects. Did they? The cabinet ministers knew which side their bread was buttered, and voted accordingly. He lost because his group is no longer in power. A different group is. And Tun Daim has the added disadvantage of being aligned to Tun Mahathir Mohamed.

The UMNO General Assembly had seriously argued banning those who left UMNO from returning, aimed at preventing the former deputy president and former Malaysian deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim for returning to UMNO, but the resolution was hastily withdrawn when it was discovered that three UMNO presidents, two alive, would have been banned. The prime miniser, Pak Lah, when he was foreign minister, had gone to Johore Bahru for the byelection in which Dato' Shahrir Samad, now of the Backbenchers' Club, had stood as an independent against the UMNO Baru candidate, and he was supported by the old UMNO hands who disagreed with the new UMNO. Pak Lah had joined the new UMNO crowd going to file nomination papers. He said he did not know what to do when he met Dato' Shahrir Samad pushing the Tengku in a wheelchair, and followed by thousands waving the UMNO flag. The Tengku and Tun Hussein Onn remained loyal to the UMNO which had been declared illegal, and refused to join the new entity. The only difference between the two UMNO flags is that the insigna is smaller on the new UMNO.

THE UMNO YOUTH DEPUTY LEADER, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, said in Sabah the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, is irrelevant to the politics there. That was the only news in the English language newspapers in West Malaysia, in effect all the newspapers which double as the National Front's publicity organs. But it had the opposite reaction. That he himself is irrelevant in Sabah is of course not mentioned. When the opposition is irrelevant, and someone high in National Front says it, the coded message, which most Malaysians know, is that it is not. Dato' Seri Anwar had a successful tour there. He gathered large crowds, and what he had to say was reported there, particularly in the Daily Express. The National Front owns all the newspapers there too, and opposition candidates in the past are known to be locked up or restrained from filing nomination papers so that the National Front candidate can be returned unopposed. But politics in Sabah is also changing.

Malaysia would rather get westerners for which non-Malays are capable. All government-linked companies employ only Malays in senior positions. All university vice-chancellors are Malays, the non-Malays leave after a time into the private sector. As opposition to UMNO spreads down to the undergraduates, no UMNO ministers dare visit the universities. Before Pak Lah could visit the University, intense negotiations took place so that the students would not rebel or protest. The police are afraid of its own shadow since they took the position as guardians of the regime, especially against Malays who rebel. When the then deputy prime minister. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, was arrested, Malays came out in their thousands to protest. This surprised the authorities, which acted against them irrationally. Over the years, this has worsened. Today, about half the Malays are against UMNO. The federal government uses the police as its goon squad in states like Kelantan, governed by the opposition PAS.

Pak Lah washes his hands when it is convenient. He said he did not know that his son-in-law's company was taken over by a government firm, Avenue Capital, which had RM3,000 million in cash, in a complicated series of moves that had the main shareholders controlling it. He told that he did not know about the transaction. A RM3,000 million in cash is depleted from government coffers, and lhe, who is also finance minister, did not know! His son-in-law did not tell him? His officials never told him? The former finance minister, Tun Daim Zainuddin, had insisted that all payments, or projects RM20 million and more should come to him. But we are told RM3,000 million has been transferred to his son-in-law without his knowledge! But when he denied, a denial that was broadcast over the government media in great detail, Malaysians who are used to the government telling lies, believed the opposite. He issued the press statement, through Bernama, a fortnight after his involvement was known throughout the country. He still believes he can stop the flood when he feels like it. But Malaysians know the government never tells the truth. The former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim was beaten to a pulp, by the Inspector-General of Police no less, while government spokesman said he was well treated. The police denied it had illtreated Chinese women tourists, but admitted that the woman in question who did the nude squat was Malay, not Chinese. In the meanwhile, a cabinet minister had gone to Beijing to apologise, two journalists had been forced to resign, a Chinese daily in danger of being suspended. But no one believes the official version, which often varies with the spokesman.

It takes a generation – about 30 years – for a policy to fruit. Malay Dominance and New Economic Policy was initiated in the 1970s. It is faced with a revolt, hidden rather than in the open, in East and West Malaysia. It does not know why. Which is why it is defensive these days. It dominated the scene, and then acted because it had no opposition. Its leaders would rather keep quiet than say anything that would explain the issue. But when they say anying, they first take leave of the senses. This revolt of the non-Malay, non-Muslim and women are only because they have come to the surface. Many holding a contrary view do not come to the surface. The police action on supporters of the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, made sure of that. The National Front knows this opposition is real, but when that begins to affect its votes, it begins to worry. But is it too little too late?

THE HIDDEN STORY OF ECM Libra merging with Avenue Capital is not told. Avenue Capital used to be called Phileo Bank, which got its licence from the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim and was said to be his vehicle, but was taken over by the government after his fall, and which is controlled by the Prime Minister. It has in its portfolio the post office, with about RM3 billion in funds. The new entity will rival Commerce International Merchant Bankers (CIMB) as Malaysia's largest investment group. But CIMB. built brick-by-brick and therefore solid, is run by Dato' Nazir Razak, the younger brother of the deputy prime minister. Mr Khairy is the top dog of the rival. It must be noted that CIMB wants to take over Southern Bank, while Mr Khairy wants it to be taken over by a Singapore group. Malaysians are told the confusing pattern of corporate deals, while the political impact of the deal is not explained. Mr Khairy is a young man in a hurry, and the corporate deals he is part of is so that he can be prime minister after his father-in-law. But ECM Libra merging with Avenue Capital, worth over RM280 million, would not have happened if his father-in-law had not allowed it. In other countries, both would have gone to jail. In Malaysia, one could follow the other as prime minister!

It is a mess. It always is when the government's view is challenged. But a Malay girl is produced to say she is the woman in question, and the world is told to accept that as fact. The nude ear squat is illegal under police rules, the commission of inquiry has said it is, but that is forgotten. The police take the view that is a culprit is found, in this case two editors, that it was not a Chinese national, and they should pay for saying otherwise. But the police in recent years only tell the truth to commissions of inquiry. It denied the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, had been beat to a pulp, when he was, by the Inspector-General of Police, no less, who went to jail for so doing. The police has been harassing Chinese tourists for years, but have denied doing it.

There has been rumours of a crackdown of dissidents and critics. This is heard while Malaysians are told that Pak Lah has allowed freedom of expression more than his predecessor. Party, as it turns out, the Malaysian government makes mistakes, when it is out of its hands. The Inspector-General of Police beat the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, to a pulp, while the police insisted he was safe and sound. The police told the truth only to a royal commission of inquiry. The home minister went to Beijing to apologise for a Malay girl forced to do the nude squat. The nude squat is illegal, but that is not addressed. Several police commissions, have been held after police abuse came to light, but the only result is a salary increase. Pak Lah makes trite comments in the meanwhile, not realising that the system has all collapsed. A headmaster tells a Sikh boy to shave; instead of throwing the book at him for breaching government policy, the official statement from Kuala Lumpur is for him to make peace with the boy. There is the question of amendments to laws that have not been initiated into law. Muslim women are given lower status than men; the Lower House of Parliament passed it, but the women senators raised such a ruckus that three cabinet ministers were needed to promise them an amendment removing what they did not like soon afterwords. And religious conversions that only the religious departments know of.

The government is split, with Pak Lah on one side and his deputy prime minister on the other. So one side will hold the other to task if they do anything. It was originally thought that Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister now in the opposition, would be brought back into UMNO to ease Dato' Seri Najib out. But there is much opposition to that. Dato' Seri Anwar has burned his bridges in UMNO: he climbed to the near top with the help of UMNO stalwarts whom he later chopped. He would not be given a second chance to do that. Besides, many supporting Dato' Seri Najib, and this group includes the former prime minister, Tun Mahathir, do not want him in UMNO. In any case, the UMNO constitution wants a new member to be five years before he can hold office. This is ignored most times, but it can be used to prevent people like Dato' Seri Anwar from holding the high office from which he was expelled.

Mr Khairy and ECM Libra has not filed police reports for good reason. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, when deputy prime minister, filed police reports, against the advise of the then prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, against the author of the book in Malay, "50 reasons why Anwar Ibrahim cannot be Prime Minister." The police report was used to investigate him, not the author of the book, he was arrested, humiliated by the police, and spent six years in jail. Lodging police reports is dangerous to Mr Khairy's and ECM's health. Mr Khairy and the company he is three per cent owner of has instead sued an opposition company, harakah daily, and Mr Husam, who could be mentri besar of Kelantan in the future. It is not Mr Khairy and ECM Libra who would be on trial, but Pak Lah as prime minister. His brother's company supplies food to MAS at inflated rates. His son's company, SCOMI, is Petronas' biggest contractor, within two years of his being prime minister.

Rare exceptions are Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister who has emerged as an opposition leader after his stint in prison, apparently on trumped up charges; Dato' Shahrir Samad who was sacked from the cabinet twenty years ago, but remains a credible political figure and has built a life outside it; the late Tun Mustapha, who became successively Yang Di Pertua and chief minister of Sabah, and rejected Kuala Lumpur's offer of defence minister in 1974. But he had a vision, and that kept him a key figure in Malaysian politics. There are few politicians in the National Front who could emulate them in politics. Many wither away once out of politics. If anything, the fight to stay in politics, especially in the cabinet, have become stronger with the passing years. The late Tun Sardon Jubir, said his decision to leave the cabinet was made by an extraneous confrontation: he was told bluntly by the younger Malays in his constituency that he should leave the cabinet and allow them to make money, that if he had not, it was tough luck!

But he has had a rough year. He had to watch over his shoulder to see what Tun Mahathir is dong, whether he likes it or not what his son-in-law, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, is doing at a time when his wife was dying of cancer. Malaysian Prime Ministers assume the world owes them a living, particularly in Malaysia, and the newspapers, which the National Front controls, carry official statements long after the public knows otherwise. This secrecy also makes him look foolish and stupid which and when he is not. He does not, it is believed by all and sundry, rule the country, but is driven by his son-in-law to do so. Many in politics believe this. Tun Mahathir returned to the political fray early in 2005 because of this. He thinks he made a bad choice in making Pak Lah as his successor, after he had his deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, arrested and had him beaten to a pulp. Some police promotions were made, before his retirement. who would stalk him but he cannot now expect that.

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