It will grow worse with time. But the comforting fact for them is that Mr Lee, 82, is around now. He is the only person left who was elected to the legislative Assembly in 1959 and the PAP, with him as prime minister, came to power. He is now minister mentor, two steps higher than the prime minister. He promises to stay on in the legislative Assembly for five more years. But time is a great leveller, and he would possibly not be around in his nineties. That is when Singapore will falll apart. The new leaders, in the modern Singapore mould, and its thinkers will fall apart. Singapore knows this, and has cranked its public relations machine to show the world it does not need Johore's water. It has expensive desalination plants planned. It converts sewage into drinkingable water, calling it Newater. It hopes to get water from the outer islands, including Indonesia's Batam. It gives the impression that it sells Johore its own water, after treatment, though that is in the contract, which expires in 2061, is not mentioned. Malaysia insisted that the agreement calls for giving the Singaporean drinking water, but not to make money of it by selling water at higher prices to commercial organisations.

Today, what Mr Khairy says goes in Pak Lah's administration. His only office in government was as his political secretary a few years ago. He is involved in high flying companies because he is Pak Lah's son-in-law. ECM Libra is one such. He does not have any experience after his studies. He got a PPE (philosophy, politics, economics) at Oxford, and LL.M from the London School of Economics. (In Malaysia, he would be a philospher, politician, economist, international lawyer as his father-in-law is a Islamic scholar because he has a degree in Islam from the University of Malaya!) He tried his best to stand for elections to Parliament from Rembau, from whence he came, but was not allowed to. The opposition to him was too strong there. He made a mess in Pengkalen Pasir, for UMNO could have won with a larger majority there in the byelection had he stayed away. UMNO had already lost votes for insisting on Dato' Annuar Musa, who is hated in the state, as the UMNO chief. Kelantan could have three more byelections, as UMNO state Assemblymen may have to vacate their seats. If PAS wins any one of the seats, UMNO would be in the state Assembly what it was before Pengakalen Pasir.

THE NATIONAL FRONT SET the pace for the byelection in Pengkalen Pasir state Assembly byelection in Kelantan. It can because it owns the media. PAS has fallen into a trap. But it is the National Front through UMNO that is fighting tooth and nail to wrest the seat which it had lost in the general election by a mere 65 votes. The byelection is caused by the death of the PAS state Assemblyman. The main problem for UMNO is that its man is Dato' Annuar Musa, head of the state UMNO party. He has many minuses to his credit, which is why the byelection is conducted by UMNO bigwigs from elsewhere in the country. He is at loggerheads with other UMNO wannabe leaders, including a federal former minister, Dato' Mustapha Mohamed. The UMNO emenense grise in the state, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, is not involved in this byelection, but the independent, Dato' Ibrahim Ali, can depend on that man's spport and supporters. They do not want the UMNO candidate to win in Pengkalen Pasir at least so that Dato' Annuar Musa's star will fall. During a former federal election, the PAS leader was given a photograph which would have killed Dato' Annuar as a politician. But Dato' Nik Aziz sent a message to him to close the doors when he undulged in what the photographs showed. The old man has never raised the incident on the hustings, but he had reduced UMNO to an also ran by his actions. I asked him about it when I heard it, and his only reply was we were young once! And he has never raised it in public. But UMNO would not have been magnanimous.

The BBC now talks of insurgency in the centre of Iraq, and of its dangers in the referendum on October 15. But it is the centre of Iraq that conain the Sunnis which has experience of government. They are out of jobs, they support Saddam Hussein even if they once did not. They could have ruled Iraq, but now they rule the insurgency. One is not surprised this happens. The Tamil insurrection in Sri Lanka grew worse after it became policy to discriminate against the Tamil civil servant, and Tamil groups will tell you that it got worse when they were excluded. And the Tamils were not the favoured group in Sri Lanka. The British made sure the Sunnis ruled during their dominance in Iraq, but joined with the Americans to dismantle it. The Sunnis rejected plans for them, and did not take part in the election of the National Assembly. They were brought in, as if that was a great concession, but the constitution was drafted by the elected Shias and Kurds, and the fear of Sunnis caused a rule to be forced upon the National Assembly by the Americans and British that the Sunni objection can only stand if it got two-thirds the vote. The National Assembly rejected it, but the damage had already been done. The Sunnis are deliberately sidelined. The condescension the Shia and Kurds over Sunni participation is not lost on the Sunnis, including the National Assembly vote on the rule that prevented a rejection. It is all in all an constituition which is hammered in Washington and London which the Iraqi is expected to vote. It will remain in force so long as the US-led multinational forces remain, call it UN forces if you like, as Tony Blair did yesterday. The US do not have the experience in foreign affairs that the British have, and they make more mistakes. If they remain in control for 40 years, as the British did, they would do well. But they would be forced out much sooner.

The cabinet in Malaysia is a conglomeration of warlords, like the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, and dismissing a warlord from the cabinet means the prime minister has one enemy more to contend. In Japan, calling an election is easier than confronting a warlord, as Mr Junichiro Koizumi proves. In Malaysia, the prime minister would rather than sack a warlord for fear of more opposition to him at the UMNO general Assembly elections. So, corrupt cabinet ministers stay on. Datin Rafidah Aziz has ordered the mainsream media and TV stations to cut off coverage, as Tan Sri Isa had done before him, and the issue is no more covered. But warlords outside the cabinet but in parliament wants her to explain the mess. She hopes the matter has died down, and the Malaysian public, given only one side of the equation at any one time on matters affecting their lives end up like sheep, now get to hear the other side of the story, and do want to hear her side of the story. The issue will not go way.

The newspapers do not report parliamentary and state Assembly proceedings as they once did: they must now fight for space with the other irrelevant news they carry. They have become large irrelevant as the elected representatives, and can gain attention only when the two quarrel. Both have to blame for this. But even the establishment begins to realise that they have an implacable enemy to contend: those who voted them in. The New Straits Times' recent attack on members of parliament is only the first. The MPs were stung to protest. Only one MP, Dato' Shahrir Samad, saw the danger. But his is a voice in the wilderness. He alone amongst the BN MPs sees this pointless confrontation as the start of something worse. He is right.

That BN and the federal and state governments it controls are deeply divided is therefore not unexpected. Each face a leadership crisis, individually and collectively. The mass media, which one or the other controls, ignore this metastasis within, but in their haste to protect the leaders, reveal more than they would otherwise. Take any party in the BN, or any state it controls. The BN is in crisis. Especially when its leaders insist there is no crisis. But it did not take this crisis within seriously until it hit UMNO and its leaders. In the months since the General Election in March 2004, the crisis within UMNO, after its president, Pak Lah, engineered the BN's largest ever election victory, winning 90 per cent of the seats in Parliament and all but one state Assembly.

The political convulsions he created in UMNO after his dismissal in 1998 turned its leaders into zombies, unable and unwilling to act for fear of what he could do. The UMNO general Assembly in September a fortnight after his unexpected release last year from prison passed a resolution he would never ever be re-admitted into the party. Despite it, he was the star of the Assembly. Officially, he did not exist, even attacked, but in the corridors and the cofee shops, it was he who dominated conversation. Nothing has changed since. When he turned up at Pak Lah's Hari Raya open house in his constituency, the credit was his, especially when Pak Lah did not return the compliment.

The Bush-Blair spin to the Iraqi election, like so many in this ubiquitous war on terror, is tendentious and wrong. The election is sold in Washington, London and elsewhere around the world as Madison Avenue sells toothpaste. These lies and distortions are spread by their newspapers, controlled by industrial behemoths, to control post-election Iraq and create a political climate at home so it could continue to dominate at will. Washington has set up its largest ever embassy in modern times in Iraq, to be on hand, after the elections, should the elected government decide it has other priorities than dancing to the Anglo-Saxon tune. Control of Iraq, now and after Sunday, is and will be from the Green Zone, from which Saddam once exercised his control over Iraq. As the transitional Assembly would be. The Iraqi is forgiven if he continues to believe his life was better under Saddam Hussein than under American-British control.

He was to have come by the King's personal aircraft but returns on a scheduled flight, because of official Malaysian protests to Saudi Arabia over his hospitality. His return to public life unites the government and opposition against him. The BN does not want him back: the UMNO general Assembly last month barred his return, more in fright since he cannot join a political party until after its general Assembly in 2007. It did not matter. He has emerged in UMNO as its most dangerous enemy.

UMNO in 2004 is in crisis. It would not admit it, but its general Assembly, and its election, last week (23-25 September 2004), did not lie, even if its leaders did. It was to annoint a new president, but it ended with him worse off than ever. The three days of election and debate were overshadowed by two issues that its leaders insisted were irrelevant: its former deputy president, Anwar Ibrahim, and vote-buying. Yet both were never far from the lips of delegates and leaders, within and without the Assembly.

BOTH WERE ABSENT AT the just concluded UMNO general Assembly – one never wanted to, the other dare not – but in the "best" debates heard in years, as the youth chief, Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein would have us believe, only Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim and money politics mattered. They are irrelevant in UMNO, but they had to be excorsised, drawn and quartered for the damage they can and do cause. The UMNO president lead the charge; every sycophantic leader raised it to a war cry. But the twin traitors of UMNO lodge deeply, in fear, loathing or indifference, in the heart of every delegate. In public, they are excoriated; in private welcomed as a long lost sibling. The mainstream media has made it their role to explain to Malaysia that both are a pernicious influence not only on UMNO but on every citizen, Malay and non-Malay, in this blessed land. In the process, much got lost in three days of debate and elections. In a nutshell, UMNO lost its way. But it does not know it yet.

DATO' SERI ANWAR IBRAHIM is the subject of much obloquy at the UMNO general Assembly this week, accused of betraying the Malay race, of unspeakable sex crimes, a traitor to UMNO, and ordered banned from ever returning to UMNO. The UMNO president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the youth, wanita, putra chiefs gleefully and with alacrity put the knife into him in venom. At the end of the day, they pat each other with a self-satisfied smirk of a job well done, convinced the man is history, and UMNO safe from this traitor. But it is UMNO, not Dato' Seri Anwar, which lost the plot. If he is disbarred from UMNO because he worked against it after he was expelled, should not this rule, in fair play, be applied to others equally guity? The UMNO youth chief, Dato' Seri Hishamuddin Hussein, insists he should not ever return to UMNO. How could an UMNO leader when he leaves, or is forced out, ever talk ill about this glorious party of Malay hegemony? He must pay for it if he does. Dato' Seri Anwar did. So he must.

The biggest problem facing UMNO is that it has few men of vision amongst its leaders, nor men who would speak out for the changes needed to survive. The party is hostage to its president of the day. But what happens to the party when the president is held hostage to his own insecurities? UMNO fractures from within as the weak president and the weaker deputy president (both to confirmed today) want to edge the other out. For the first time, the leaders do not know how or what the ground thinks. Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi bent the rules to lead the BN into power with a 90 per cent majority, and to be returned unopposed as UMNO president. He – or his handlers – did not understand or expect the cost. The cynicism of the UMNO delegates is so overpowering this year, that Pak Lah would be weaker still after this Assembly is over.

WITHIN DAYS OF ITS general Assembly, UMNO has two momentous decisions before it: fulfil Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's dreams for Malaysia and UMNO and overcome his greatest challenges; and help Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak capture the hearts and minds of the young so UMNO could survive. Nothing else matters in front of the Assembly. The delegates are on autocue; loyal marionettes, who nod when they have to, clap when they must, praise the leaders at the right occasion, reduce the nation's problems to irrelevant asides and jokes. It does not, of course, matter that this charade is repeated every year without fail, and ignored after the UMNO general Assembly. It is all in the UMNO belief that talk equals action, that once a leader says it, it is done. This is not new. Nor that this enthusiastic agenda for the nation and for Malaysian youth turns cold within a week of the general Assembly.

UMNO LEADERS HAVE LOST the plot. A fortnight after Dato' Seri Anwar is released from prison, he is the only issue they have. The only news that matters of Malaysian politics, as the mainstream newspapers see it, is he, not UMNO or its general Assembly or indeed its triennial elections next week. If it is not to decry him or his future in Malaysian politics, it is UMNO's fear and loathing of the man. And this of one the UMNO supreme council decreed should never ever soil the party with his membership. Is that the issue here? After all, UMNO gleefully points out to any who would listen that whatever the courts might say, he is a sodomist, that he is barred from party politics for five years, that he would be 61 by then and 'too old' to start the grind to be prime minister.

All are frightened of this. The newspapers went to town on his release for no altruistic reason than that he sells newspapers. For a few days, he was all over the media. Reporters camped outside his house so they could report on the goings on. Then as quickly he disappeared into the shadows where he had been since his arrest, conviction and imprisonment for corruption and sodomy. His release was seen as yet another example of the liberal government now that the hated Dr Mahathir is no more in office. The press, here and overseas, praised Pak Lah for his maganamity, his refusal to interfere with the judiciary, the superficial signs of an independent judiciary and media. But that is a mirage. The iron-first control remains, but the man with the iron fist is not strong enough to enforce it. All the means of control are in place. The press is firmly in his grip. His key men are all appointed to ensure it. He controls internal security. But he does not have the iron control his predecessor had. His ascension to office is flawed, and every attempt to right it has gone awry: he allowed factions to reassert in UMNO, he tried too hard to be returned in the March general elections, he tries too hard to control UMNO after its general Assembly and elections later this month, but with the wounded Anwar on the loose, he is forced into a corner. In a nutshell, he took office as the weakest prime minister yet, tried too hard, and fudged the rules, to make him strong, but failed.

UMNO IS IN SHAMBLES. Its general Assembly and elections is a fortnight hence, but its leaders, delegates and members are worried about one who it kicked out, and what he would or would not do. Normally the runup to an UMNO general Assembly is of furious activity. This year, it should have been the more. The acting president seeks legitimacy as elected leader. He wants his hand-picked team in place, and pulls no stops to ensure it. A code of ethics guides the elections, but it changes from one day to the next that UMNO now hold tutorials to explain it to the delegates and candidates. The disciplinary board would contain widespread use bribery – in UMNOspeak, money politics – and other illegal gratification, but its decisions encourages corruption, because its mild slaps on the wrist is not a warning to others to cease and desist.

Normally, with the UMNO general Assembly and elections three weeks ahead, the mainstream newspapers would have little of note to report except the incestuous infighting to be elected, with space only for those who are linked to the UMNO president. All others are all but pariahs, there to prove democracy exists in UMNO and lose. The creative interpretations of its code of ethics is a scandal that candidates now request a tutorial on what is allowed and not. No campaigning, it said; but it is now allowed. No bribery aka money politics, it said; but those caught for it, especially if in the government, are told to go forth and sin no more. Three vice-presidential candidates are thought to have indulged in it with an abandon and face disqualification. Or at least that was the intention so the Pak Lah nominees could romp home without a contest. There is no talk of that although several UMNO leaders insist they would be at the postponed supreme council meeting this week. More frightening is a move by some delegates to ensure the supreme council members elected do not hold any official posts. Whether it would succeed is beside the point; that it has much support should worry the UMNO leaders.

Suddenly, all stops were off. Dato' Seri Anwar is welcomed like a conquering lion. The newspapers could not do enough to report on him. TV3 alloted 12 minutes of its 30 minutes prime news to the Anwar release. The mainstream newspapers, in which he lurked occasionally in the corners of their inside pagers to reflect his irrelevance in today's Malaysia, now pulled all stops to welcome him on their front pages. The reports were slanted to an official line but Anwar sells newspapers, which is after all why newspapers are printed in Malaysia, so let principles go hang; if the devil on the front page could sell newspapers, why not? Political officialdom gritted its teeth to find its nemesis the talk of the town and country. UMNO and its general Assembly is forgotten. Pak Lah and his vision for Malaysia got lost in the confusion. It was Anwar, Anwar, Anwar. If you wanted to read news of the UMNO general Assembly, you could not; news of it could not match the newspaper selling qualities of an Anwar on the front page.

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