But there is no debate. We talk at cross purposes. Threats and statements are made not in public but in their own websites and self-serving one-way statements. The opposition parties are ready to debate at any time on any issue. The government parties takes the initiative for one and then finds creative reasons why it should not be held. The MCA, as representative of the Chinese in the cabinet, has failed so badly that it is kept on as a pro-forma representatives of the community, malleable and kept on its toes. So when a genuine Chinese issue turns up -- as the vision schools and the Suqiu proposals -- they shut up. And throw the blame on anyone who suggests why. That is now political debate. But in Bolehland it is. There is nothing Mr Rustam need apologise to the MCA Youth for.

Promote Classics seem to believe boxing matches with worldclass players can be arranged like you would district boxing matches. And, like the government, it believes Malaysians can be fashioned like cheese to accept any rubbish offered them. It thinks Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis would drop everything to rush to Malaysia for a boxing match to keep fans in Malaysia happy. If it got Tyson's letter of intent a year ago, why was it not converted into a firm contract? Letters of intent are MOUs -- and this even Bolehland lawyers would tell you mean nothing.

The Prime Minister was in Myanmar last week, met Gen. Than Shwe, the head of state, and left on a sailing holiday around the Andaman Islands. We are told, though, he was in south Myanmar all the while. Unusually, no ministers, not even the foreign minister, Dato' Syed Hamid Albar, accompanied him, only officials. But his visit is an elaborate mask to mull over his new cabinet. He sails on a superluxury yacht of a tottering Bolehland tycoon, and again rumours, he returns this week in it, and is expected to return today in it.

So, with each international gathering, be it sports or conferences, the orgy of building begins afresh. So, for the Commonwealth Games in 1998, a whole Games village was built in the usual Bolehland way of allowing cronies to build it in return for choice land. These would never be used except fitfully and rarely: the charges are so high that even sports bodies ignore it, and they decay without maintence and use. If Malaysia were to host the 2006 Asiad, at least a few hundred million ringgit would be needed to bring these up to date.

And so, according to latest rumours, the Rulers would consider four names -- one Court of Appeal and three high court judges -- for promotion to the Federal Court when they meet next week. The man who, despite his judicial sleights of hand and behaviour, has a brilliant legal mind, Judge Gopal Sri Ram, is not favoured anymore. But Judge Mokhtar Sidin -- who in the Vincent Tan libel case allowed the plaintiff's lawyer, Dato' V.K. Lingam, to write the judgement giving him a total of RM10 million in damges even if neither libel nor damages were proved -- is. The inclusion of three high court judges raises judicial and legal eyebrows. Why should it? If kindergarten children can get double promotion, as the much-vaunted, ill-thought-out vision schools allow, why should not high court judges to the federal court? After all, the Malaysian judiciary has a more serious problem with judicial libido than dispense justice. If a man faces a prominent business man in court, he cannot succeed. The court would find creative reasons to damn him. This is so ingrained that few would rather opt to have disputes arbitrated. Indeed, in almost every contract involving foreign investment or investors, disputes are by arbitration overseas, usually in Singapore. So much for the integrity of Bolehland justice.

The Bolehland chief justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, wants women lawyers to dress conservatively; they should not wear tight slacks, figure-hugging dresses or low-cut blouses which show off cleavage. Why? "Judges, both men and women, being seated on a higher platform than the rest of the court, could easily be distracted by the overt display of the body by lawyers wearing low-cut clothes," he tells reporters in Seremban (NST, 01 November 00, p4). Malaysian judges, both men and women are so randy, he infers, that the court must act to dampen their desires! Why did he have to say this? If court decorum requires it, then why explain? Does it require a court circular? Why could not some court clerk call the offending lawyer quietly aside and whisper into her ear? But the chief justice wants to codify conduct in court, and issues a dress code, which has been changed so often that it threatens to be like the federal constitution.

He travels overseas often, nowadays in stealth in the questionable company of his cronies, siblings and courtiers, but these days is waylaid so often that he faces reality there than he at home. Not him alone. The Prime Minister and his cabinet now face critical audiences, especially students, in Malaysia and overseas; they would not dare meet them here except in controlled circumstances. The government dismissed one group that stalked him in the United Kingdom as "Pakistanis", ignoring the irony of a Pakistani girl with a Malay mother labelled a Malaysian and showered with scholarships when she went up to Cambridge University when in her teens: if the government can shower scholarships on a Pakistani girl, especially one who has no intention to return, how could it now attack an anti-Malaysian crowd as Pakistani, some of whom could well be of similar extraction? But in Bolehland, the goose's sauce is not the gander's!

Tan Sri Vincent Tan, no doubt, has his feet firmly anchored in quicksand. Like most crony business men. His company is given the contract to build the monorail in Kuala Lumpur. It was to have been complieted before the Commonwealth Games in 1998. It was not. Now we are told it would be by December 2001. There is no way it could. The pillars, an eyesore at the best of times, now provide advertising pillairs for one of his companies. His linear city over the Klang River, the world's first, remains unbuilt. He has seen his share prices decline by half of his flagship, Berjaya Group, its potential debts in excess of RM2 billion. Unlike in the past, when he could have got negotiated-tender contracts to bail him out, he must now rely on defamation damages to see him through. Even the newspaper he owned, the Sun, is no more under his control. But, when all is said and done, he will live on in history, whatever the result in Sydney and English, of his stirring commitment to devalue Malaysia's judicial and justicial process. Why am I not ecstatic that a Malaysian has done something that would live on in legal history? But then, as I have been told, often enough, I am terribly jealous of what others see as untramelled success. Good Luck, Tan Sri Vincent Tan. But not to export Malaysian commercial and legal practices to Australia, the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth jurisdictions. He can be assured that this case has all the makings of a cause celebre. He should do Bolehland, if not Malaysia, proud.

Dr Jamaluddin insists his interest in EPE would be in a blind interest -- that famous Bolehland institution of business men-politicians in sensitive official positions put their shareholdings and business interests into in which the trustee, not the trust, must be blind. Should the Tenage board decide on a project in which EPE is one of the parties, what would the non-executive chairman do? Stay in place but not vote, as the international trade and industry minister, Datin Rafidah Aziz did, when her ministry awarded a lucrative contract to a company controlled by her son-inlaw? Or vote for EPE, since a blind trustee runs that for him? Whether he is competent or not -- he is -- is not the issue. He is appointed as a trusted National Front nominee. It is this that rankles. After letting Tenage run professionally and competently at a time when political decisions reduced its competence and competitiveness, replacing its chiefs on political and other whims, bringing in a politician must throw doubts about official internetions towards Tenaga.

The talks have stalled. Malaysia wants KTM to continue its services. Singapore replied that if it had to, the gradient required to enable the trains to link with the bridge would have to begin several kilometres away from Johore Bahru and Woodlands. But Malaysia meanwhile went ahead and announced who would build the project. I had lunch once with one connected with this consortium, who insisted it would go on whether Singapore agreed to or not. This arrogance prevailed through the negotiations. Dato' Ghani tells us what the gateway would look like: ten lanes for heavy vehicles, cars, motorcycles and pedestrians; the Tebrau Straits would be navigable once more; a rail link, a new CIQ to replace the existing Tanjong Putera link. He does not say where it would connect to the island and how it would be linked to Woodlands. The contract was awarded in the usual Bolehland way, in which cronies, siblings, courtiers and hangers-on join in an instant consortium to run the problem at the most expensive way possible. The contract is awarded to a consortium led by Gerbang Perdana Sdn Bhd with Marong Mahawangsa Sdn Bhd (60 per cent of the equity), Diversified Resources Bhd (20 per cent) and Detik Nagasari Sdn Bhd (20 per cent). A company in which a cabinet minister had a substantial interest is one of the major contractors.

Bolehland newspapers, radio and television report, ironically and without comment, official praises at its efforts to release 21 Malaysian and foreign hostages kidnapped ten days ago from the contested Sipadan Island off the coast of Sabah. Official disinterest is curious, to say the least. Television footage of more tourists in Sipadan aims to show normalcy, as if the kidnap did not matter. But after the initial shock, tourists could not cancel their bookings for financial reasons; having paid their fares, they would not want to lose out by cancelling them. Bolehland officialdom is at sixes and sevens; it cannot control events in the Philippines, which wants to root out the Abu Sayyaf rebels. That they hold the hostages at five locations in an area surrounded by Filipino military raises the ante, even if the earlier reports of two tourists dying in a firefight turned out false. Bolehland gives the impression of activity, sending the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Norian Mai, and an aeroplane with medicines and food and accompanied by a cabinet minister and a deputy minister, both from Sabah. They were sent as of right, devoid of diplomatic protocol and finesse, which reduced their presence to mere spectators from afar.

But the government believes, against the evidence and the reality, that privatisation must continue, even if Bolehland must mortage its future generations to prove an unprovable point. So, I was not surprised to learn of yet another privatisation that would divide the spoils of the corporatisation of health and medical centres between the Bin Mahathir clan and the Ben Uddin clan, the secretive conglomerate with a finger, if rumours at the market place can be believed, in every privatised pie. Peninsular Malaysia is divided into half, with each getting one half. There is no announcement, of course. The behind-the-scenes negotiations took longer if only because the Ben Uddin group wanted in when it became certain it was Bin Mahathir's for the asking. Neither have any experience in managing hospitals and medical centres, but that in Bolehland is the surest confirmation of professional and financial competence. The doctors in the Malaysian medical service have to opt for continued government service or jump ship for higher salary into either conglomerate. They have all been given their option papers, and do not have time to evaluate the options offered. In Bolehland, speed is the essence, especially when large dollops of potential profit is involved. The government would not announce this -- I hope I can be proved wrong on this -- until after the spoils are divided, without the i's dotted and the t's crossed to ensure that the exercise would continue to be a drain on the public purse.

This morning, Sukom 98, the company that organised the Commonwealth Games, was to meet the managing director of Ticket Express, Dato' Sri Ram Sharma, over a RM10 million dispute over tickets and expenses. He showed his commitment to internationalising his business by leaving for urgent discussions in Ougadougoug, has left the details to an aide who can only ensure the problem would never be resolved. That is only to be expected when Sukom 98 itself, caught up in the self-deating hype of "Malaysia Boleh", ensured massive losses. When other Commonwealth countries showed scant interest, Dato' Sri Ram Sharma came in to help. It earned him a federal datoship, in addition to one from Selangor when his good friend, Tan Sri Mohamed Taib, he who travels around the world with millions of ringgit in cash, was mentri besar. He is a quintessential product of Bolehland, the new kid on the block who can provide instant solutions with no expertise but a glib tongue, causes losses all round but his own pocket. There are several other unpaid debts over his involvement in the Commonwealth Games.

In this inexhorable lurch, with official blessings, towards a fascist Bolehland, discernible in the aftermath of the Anwar Saga, the judiciary and the Attorney-General's Chambers have played a stellar role. The Chief Justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, accepts the problem, wants to resolve it, recently called on Malaysians to accept judicial judgements, suggesting the judges' role is that of a referee and that one party must inevitably lose. But he did not address the central issue: the Malaysian public accepts this but feels, rightly or wrongly, that other than legal considerations come into play when particular judges preside or when paricular lawyers appear. Business men and politicians use the courts to fighten potential critics, a tendency to which the courts have allowed. Defamation suits demand hundreds of millions of ringgit in damages. Courts awards costs of hundreds of millions, the most recent more than RM600,000 against the Malaysian Bar when it failed, in appeals up to the Federal Court, in its attempt to discipline one of its members. This feeling can only be erased by the judiciary itself.

Mutiny may be a harsh word, in the circumstances, but shifting alignments, especially by the Penghulu, is not. When the Prime Minister and his ilk excoriate his nemesis, and retract businesses and projects of his cronies, the Penghulu quietly and inexplicably throws a lifeline to He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost. While contracts are publicly cancelled from some Anwar-linked companies, others linked more blatantly are given equally lucrative contracts. The Abrar Group were awarded contracts to build four district hospitals -- in Sungei Patani, Kedah; in Ampang, Selangor; in Temerloh, Pahang; and in Setiu, Trengganu. The Sungei Patani hospital contract was taken away and given to consortium of Universal Builders and Bina Darul Aman; in the latter company, a company called Maluri, whose relationship to the Penghulu is not a million miles apart, has a 30 per cent stake. In the Ampang hospital, Abrar had not only started work, but it is built on Abrar land; the government dragged its feet until it promised Abrar the contract provided it dealth with an Australian healthcare company which Peremba, which has the same relationship to the Penghulu as Maluri, was fortuitious in taking control of the Australian company before the offer Abrar could not refuse. In the twists and turns of Bolehland insider antics, Peremba suddenly becomes a prime player when this, and other hospitals, are eventually privatised; it also poses unwelcome competition to the Bin Mahathir-controlled Tongkah Holdings in the hospital privatisation business.

But Tan Sri Halim Saad fell into the trap every Bolehland business man fell into while laughing all the way to the bank overseas. Individuals running the company did not lose any money; only the shareholders did. The whole privatisation exercise went wrong when each was given to a RM2 paid-up capital company owned by a crony or sibling, who made hundreds of millions of out it by injecting it, usually in a series of transfers, and then injected into a public company which on listing on the stock exchange sells a portion of it to the public at inflated prices. The public clamour for the shares results in other major shareholders taking their profits out by selling their allocation, buying it back, if at all, after the shares have come crashing down. All work is done inhouse for further enrichment. This is one reason why Dato' Seri Anwar exchanged his residence from 47 Jalan Damansara to Sungei Buloh prison: he wanted an accounting of all this.

But Bolehland looks at all this from a different perspective. It wants the glory not the tedium; what it gets now is the tedium without the glory. So, the hucksters cash in. One consultant was told by his client that one American consortium has offered to resolve his simple computer system of its Y2K bug for a third of its current year's profit, about RM10 million ringgit. He looked at the system, told him the shut the computers down and do not start it until he arrived. He switched on each computer in turn, typed in a post 2000 date, and the computers worked fine. He said his computers and software were already Y2K compliant. But then Bolehland always have had a predeliction for con men and artists. Still, why are not the software and hardware companies taken to task for their massive neglect on this issue?

The Indah Water Konsortium, as one great privatisation successes of Bolehland, knows what it must do -- scream for public sympathy at the millions it spends to restore Bolehland's sewerage services, almost all in terrible condition, or so it claims; and demand payment, whether lawful or not, for non-existent services. That international business man of unquestioned repute, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, got the RM6,000,000,000 privatisation of sewerage services in the usual cronyistic fashion, quickly transferred it, in a series of corporate moves, to the present owners to untangle the legal minefield. The aim of the privatisation was clear: get as much money from the public and people as it can before the inadequacies of the law shine through. It was awarded in the usual Bolehland manner at a time when official and crony arrogance was breathtaking -- in stealth, secrecy, without making sure that the privatisation was legal. So much so that five years after it was privatised, IWK itself does not know what its basis for charging its alleged consumers are.

Why does the minister of education, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, keep quiet when an 19-year-old undergraduate cocks a snook at the government by audaciously and treacherously (by current Bolehland definitions) travels to Indonesia and the Philippines to urge their heads of state to pressure her country's leaders to ensure that justice is meted out to her father? I believe this girl, an undergraduate, has fallen foul of the Universities and Colleges Act. Could the minister also deny a nasty rumour that this girl had been deprived of her scholarship about the time her father received that notorious black eye when detained under the ISA?

Two prominent Bolehland companies, Berjaya Group Bhd and Insas Bhd, in the stable of Tan Sri Vincent Tan, hope to raise RM750 million with irredeemable convertible unsecured loan stocks to reduce bank borrowings and strengthen their respective financial position. The coupon rate of between eight and 10 per cent would make savings deposits more desirable today. Even with the sweetener of four warrants with each loan stock. Berjaya Group proposes a one-for-two rights issue of RM607.88 million in ICULS, with four warrants attached, while Insas proposes a one-for-four rights issue of RM142.7 million ICULS, also with four warrants attached. But with both the companies' share prices languishing 70 per cent below its par value, and with the stock exchange in the doldrums, it would take a brave man to invest in companies like the Berjaya Group and Insas, already pressured by the market downturn.

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