MGG Pillai: No he wasn't, he had actually in fact I wrote an article about him at that time when he became deputy prime minister for which he banned me from seeing him for a few years. I had said that he fascist tendencies in his method of administration. That element of it one cannot write out, a leopard doesn't change his spots. But I think he's genuine about the need for reform, he was genuine at the time he was there, except that he couldn't move the Cabinet or the government to enforce it. And I am one of those who believe that he was forced out because of a conspiracy within those in government who felt that he was asking too many of the right questions.

One is not surprised then at the party election results. The New Straits Times calls it "shock results". It is to Pak Lah and the newspaper, but not to those who have followed developments closely. What shocked him though is that those aligned to his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, were amongst the victors. The three vice-presidents – Tan Sri Isa Samad, Dato' Seri Ali Rastam, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin – are not his men. In the supreme council, half the incumbents including three Cabinet ministers, many aligned to Pak Lah, were defeated, those whom he wanted out are returned, to tie his hands in the new supreme council. Those who should have been in were defeated for no reason than they would not be involved in vote buying. The breast-beating aside, it was also clear that if a candidate was unprepared to bribe the delegates, he would not win. At one look, it appears none who did not bribe were returned.

If you think this anti-Anwar campaign appears to be deliberately and cynically planned, you are right. Pak Lah last week met the youth, wanita, puteri councils to insist Dato' Seri Anwar is a sodomite whatever the Federal Court said, that he must be attacked as vilely at the general assembly, and they fan around the country explaining this to the members at the ground. He treads of dangerous ground here. But the gloves are off. UMNO has decided it would not rest until Dato' Seri Anwar is retired for good from the political scene, that he should not be allowed to resume his political career in the Opposition, that his continued presence in politics is an unmitigated disaster for UMNO, especially that he is the yardstick UMNO looks up to. When UMNO leaders were told last night that CNN is broadcasting a 30-minute television interview tomorrow (25 September) and 11 am and repeated four times during the day, it shocked as many as it pleased them. This ill-thought out attempt to blot him from the political landscape boomerangs. Dato' Seri Anwar has, by keeping quiet and staying out of the fray, frightens UMNO into mortal fear. As the political secretary of a Cabinet minister closely aligned to Pak Lah said: "Anwar Ibrahim belum jentik, UMNO sudah hancur." Loosely translated it means, UMNO disintigrates when he snaps his fingers. To prevent it, it must first destroy its own past leaders.

What happens at these gatherings? On Sunday (20 September 2004), it was the turn of the Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Seri Khir Toyo. The roads to his house were chocker block with hundreds of the latest models of Mercedes Benzes, BMWs, Lexuses, and just about every luxury car you could find parked along the road to the residence at Shah Alam. It would be an understatement to say that the luxury cars alone would have been worth at least RM1 billion. But then UMNO meetings are for aspiring politicians to show off their wealth, their cars and their trophy wives. Twenty years ago, a Malay lawyer and I were on the same flight to Penang. He offered me a lift to my hotel. His old Holden car awaited him. He shouted at the driver that he wanted the Mercedes Benz because he was there to attend an UMNO branch meeting. He ordered him to go back to the mainland and return with the other car. I remonstrated with him to take the car into town, and then let the driver return with the other car. He would not hear of it. And we were stuck at the airport for more than three hours until the Mercedes arrived. For him it worked. He is now a Cabinet minister and a candidate for the UMNO supreme council.

The wanita, puteri and youth congresses are in one mind about it. The UMNO congress, which begins today, would too. But one discerns one trend not there in previous congresses: many delegates realise the party is headed for oblivion if it is not reformed, perhaps under leaders, with a clear aim of what ails it and how it would overcome it. For too long, the party believed it could do as it pleases, its leaders manipulated the party that few could speak their minds: Cabinet ministers are sacked for their insolence in challenging the leader's views; divisional leaders are threatened with bankruptcy and worse if they strayed from the straight and the narrow; branch leaders and ordinary members reduced into ipotent silence. It is not the best of ways to strengthen a political party that has seen better days.

UMNO will not re-admit the convicted, jailed, and IGP-battered former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. He will not be in the Cabinet. He must be made to suffer for his treachery. He should not expect a pardon. He is a nobody. Which is why he wants back in: he is envious and jealous of UMNO's total commitment to championing the Malays, its fantastic success in the March general elections, its unique role in Malaysia's postwar political history. These and other outlandish mantras are repeated ad naseum by the UMNO president, the deputy president, and other high ranking leaders in speeches, in private talks, to party delegations worried about it and at press conferences across the country. Malaysia's tabloid newspapers – all fighting for the right to lose as much money as fast as possible – and other newspapers the BN parties own have spread this message incessantly since 02 September 2004, when the Federal Court freed Dato' Seri Anwar from jail.

But the reality is that Dato' Seri Anwar's release has split the top UMNO leaders. Many, if not most, were in the conspiracy that lead to Dato' Seri Anwar's dismissal, arrest and conviction. The UMNO deputy president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, headed the "Destroy Anwar" committee, which manufactured a videotape which showed Dato' Seri Anwar in compromising homosexual positions. But when the supreme council was shown it – at which both Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib were present though not Tun Mahathir Mohamed – several pronounced it so badly done that few would believe it. It was shown nevertheless – to senior civil servants, armed forces generals, ambassadors and others of high rank. At several showings, similar questions were raised. One ambassador asked, after he saw the video with others flown in to watch it, why Dato' Seri Anwar had long hair "on the job", but not when he was tired and resting after. Few remembers the botched effort but the perpetrators, now in high political and Cabinet office, fear an Anwar backlash now that he is free.

THE FEDERAL COURT'S CAREFULLY-CRAFTED 89-page judgement, which allowed Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's appeal against conviction and sentence for sodomy and freed him from prison, contained this throwaway line: "To summarise our judgment, even though reading the appeal record, we find evidence to confirm that the appellants were involvved in homosexual activities and we are more inclined to believe that the alleged incident at Tivoli Villa did happen." UMNO politicians, Cabinet ministers, journalists, anti-Anwaristas and others seize upon it to insist that though acquitted, he is still guilty, unfit to return to politics. But they ignored the judges' reasoning and caution: "(However) the court may only convict the appellants if the prosecution had successfully proved the alleged offences as stated in the charges beyond reasonable doubt on admissible evidence and in accordance with established principles of law." Their cursory remarks – what the law would call 'obiter dicta' – has no bearing on the judgment but it raised the eternal conundrum: Is justice at the mercy of the political executive? The status quo insist behind the scenes it is, whilst in public affirm justice's inviolability.

Corporate figures could not move into party positions even with free-flowing money; one lost to a cobbler for a branch chairmanship; another to a nondescript man, who challenged him as an afterthought. In the Malay mind, political positions is an open sesame to wealth and position; those who cannot obtain it, like corporate figures, buy their own delegates, and arrange to bribe the delegates to make them win. This is not new. The Chinese business men do it all the time. It is not talked about openly, but look at any UMNO leader, from the branch on, and he has lurking in his periphery a Chinese business man. They are taking a chance on the riches that would accrue if this UMNO man reaches the top. Those UMNO leaders who indulge in bribery and money politics openly are in the government, state and federal. Four who indulge in it with impunity are two mentris besar and two federal Cabinet ministers. But they are not the only one. Behind every Malay politician and business man stands a Chinese business man.

And worse when he takes his fateful re-entry in party politics. Would he rejoin UMNO? No chance, says the deputy president-to-be, Dato' Seri Najib, the UMNO constitution does not allow it, though others who joined opposition parties on leaving UMNO are welcomed back with open arms. It is wise of Dato' Seri Anwar to have gone overseas now. He was still in an adrenalin-induced high at being released unexpectedly, when I saw him on Saturday (04 September), and inclined to make he could later regret. By the time he returns he would have returned to earth. The Cabinet is split. His silent backers who pushed their support to the deepest recesses of their minds now flex their muscles. When challenge is "derhaka" (treachery), it is wise to keep to one's counsel; when that is backed by like-minded individuals and groups, the gloves are off, and it is war. The gauntlet is thrown for UMNO to pick up. Whether he gets the review of not does not matter: whatever the result it is to UMNO's disadvantage. That he is free despite horrendous attempts to make sure he does not reflects the shifting sands that could be UMNO's quagmire if it cannot pull itself.

But the scramble to do the right thing, even with gritted teeth, was unmistakeable. On Thursday night, the night of his release, all roads it seems led to the non-descript residence in Jalan Setiamurni in Bukit Bandaraya. Pak Lah's son-in-law, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, was there to pay his respects – even here there is a spin: Pak Lah says Dato' Seri Anwar requested to meet Mr Khairy for an urgent passport to leave overseas, and which the government had already agreed to; Dato Seri Anwar says he came to offer Pak Lah's good wishes and salaams; take your pick – and he had to be smuggled out through the kitchen door. The gathering crowds were protective on who could see him. The former Keadilan information chief, Mr Roslan Kassim, who had harsh words to say of Dato' Seri Anwar after they left the party, were prevented from entering the house. Pak Lah would shiver in his pants if he knew who of his Cabinet had called, some in person, to wish him luck.

His release also came because politics insisted he be. Pak Lah and the BN government had no role in it. The Saudi government forced it. When the federal government last year refused to allow Dato' Seri Anwar surgery in Munich for his severe back problems, the Saudi government offered to take responsibility for him. It was refused. This year, Pak Lah's health minister refused it again in a statement to parliament. When Pak Lah visited Riyadh to get help for a pressing fiscal problem, he did not get it. The Saudis tried again, as Dato' Seri Anwar's condition worsened, and with it the probability of an early release from jail. A senior member of the Mahathir Cabinet, now retired, reputedly visited him in hospital, and the political solution worked out. Pak Lah's hands were forced because the 2-1 verdict that released Dato' Seri Anwar was rumoured for weeks – and in a capital where news is sparse, rumours often a mask for what happened.

There is merit in all of this, but in a general election, not in a by-election. The BN swamped the constituency with as many as three campaigners to every voter. The UMNO deputy prime minister and several Cabinet ministers were on hand to lead them, untold money was spent, all of which allowed in the peculiar way the Election Commission allows money to be spent: only what the candidate himself spends for his campaign, like his posters and other similar expenses, are allowed, not the hundreds of millions of ringgit the BN spend to assemble the campaigners and the organisation. The presence of so many Cabinet ministers, all paid out of government funds, is ignored.

It was a big but inevitable mistake. None around him could by then advise him of the political and cultural quicksand he stepped into. Those would could had been dropped from his Cabinet or sidelined. And in Dato' Seri Anwar, he lost his most powerful naysayer amongst his coterie. This was followed by an incoherence, including defaming him in public but when invited to prove it in court, he copped out. Though in office for five more years, his political wings were clipped then and there. Every action he took since, subconsciously or not, was to prove Dato' Seri Anwar wrong.

One gets the uncomfortable feeling that the UMNO leaders know the ground are more aggressive now than ever, and anyone who appears before them would be asked to prove themselves. BN and UMNO politicians have been cushioned and cosseted from the vagaries of political lives; all that is needed is to be in office to be protected from unnecessary questioning from members. The rules are made tighter to make this all but impossible and, if you want to be UMNO president or deputy president, it is all but impossible unless one has more money than one wants to spend - or rich beyond greed as a state chief minister or federal Cabinet leader or even a businessman.

When a presidential whip conditioned UMNO politics, none dared to express officially disapproved thought. When the whip fell into disuse after the new leader took over, the pent-up anger and the sudden exultation of freedom challenged the status quo. It was not helped when the new leader, anxious to be one in his own right, did a few illegal acts to ensure it. But he is caught out. That in essence is why no one wants to talk about the corruption issue in UMNO. If Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on becoming president next month, decides enough is enough, that what matters is the party, not him, put a few blatant mis-users of office, including a few from his Cabinet, in jail, then there is hope.

The UMNO elections next month has Pak Lah Cabinet ministers and supporters fighting tooth and nail to be returned, and reveal details as this with impunity. Money politics is alive and well in UMNO, andis an euphemism for corruption.

THE KEPONG FLYOVER DISASTER, the Kelantan avian influenza, the UMNO elections, the Cabinet at cross purposes, corruption and political and administration decay out in the open and all but uncontrollable, point to one inevitable fact: the dysfunctional National Front (BN) administration of the prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, which wallows in its irrelevance, despite its dramatic electoral successes – the General Elections and Pak Lah's election as UMNO president.

So far, eight UMNO candidates – for vice-president and supreme councillor – offer between RM500 a delegate to RM150. Heading this list is Dato' Astaman Aziz, the son of the former UMNO wanita leader and federal Cabinet minister, Tan Sri Aishah Ghani, who makes it a condition that he and his Japanese partners, Sumitomo, get the Jimah independent power plant in Negri Sembilan. It should have been signed last month, but Pak Lah has ordered a review of all directly negotiated contracts of which this was one.

When this became known in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Cabinet stepped in and organised its own plan for a Peninsular winner. The Cabinet ministers, all from UMNO, focussed on one contestant and whipped up its own vote for him. And he won.

Pak Lah (1364)   United States (636)   Straits Times (412)   Samy Vellu (224)   Putra Jaya (200)   Chief Justice (200)   Saddam Hussein (188)   Vincent Tan (164)   Civil Service (154)   Parti KeADILan (148)   Islamic State (118)   Johore Bahru (100)   Sungei Buloh (94)   Bukit Tinggi (88)   Abdul Razak (80)   Pengkalen Pasir (68)   Ting Pek (64)   Armed Forces (59)   Soviet Union (58)

Malay Dominance (58)   Yong Teck (56)   Hong Kong (56)   Human Rights (56)   Syed Hamid (54)   Puteri UMNO (52)   Islam Hadhari (52)   Royal Commission (51)   Hussein Onn (51)   Rafidah Aziz (48)   Indian Congress (48)   Open House (44)   Vision Schools (44)   Shah Alam (44)   Malay Unity (42)   Chua Jui (42)   Abdul Taib (42)   Ampang Jaya (36)   Ras Adiba (36)

Osama Bin Laden (36)   Nik Aziz Nik (20)   Ling Liong Sik (18)   Lee Kuan Yew (18)

High Court Judge (14)   Wan Azizah Wan (9)   Lim Kit Siang (9)   Megat Junid Megat (8)

Mahathir (2960)

Anwar (2399)