Why is Pak Lah not believed? After all, corruption in on every one's lips. We all fall prey to it at the counter level: the odd dollar to a lowly civil servant to ease one's way through life, and higher up the chain if one's needs can be met higher up the Civil Service heirarchy. For him to be believable, he has to act with firmness and as if he meant it, and he has to charge those at the top, against whom cases had been filed, and charge them. If the reports are filed in malice or frivously or frippantly, charges should be filed against them for misleading the authorities. Whatever it is, he must act with firmness. There is no sign of it in his moves now against corruption. As it is, it is now seen as the luck of the draw; the fellow who got caught is not guilty, but unlucky. That surely is not what he wants to let Malaysians know.

There is one drastic way out of this mess. Make the police force reflect the population. This means more Chinese and Indians must be recruited. The Government shot itself in the foot, after the 1969 racial riots and the Malay insistence that they alone ruled, when it dismantled the multiracial services to recruit Malays: the armed forces, the police, the Civil Service, the statutory bodies, the universities. The government, as constituted, has no reach to the virtual alternate governments within the power centres of the non-Malay communities. Unfortunately these power centres tend to be gangsters and others of the ilk. It is not surprising that many gangster chieftains have obtained respectability by acquiring titles. Bribery and corruption is rampant in all this, and is as pervasive as in the police force. But in the narrow political calculations Pak Lah and his men bringing more non-Malays into the government is a Damoclean sword, especially when UMNO has yet to annoint him as its president.

NEPOTISM IS ALIVE AND well in Malaysia. As elsewhere in the world. When Rupert Murdoch considers who should oversee his vast business empire after him, the products of his loins get a head start. So when the Genting Highlands chieftain retires at 85. It is common in the business and financial world. In politics and in the Civil Service, it is frowned upon but it exists after a fashion. When one has the power to do it, why should one demur? The dynastic succession is now a political ideal as a monarchy or a commercial fact of life. Often this nepotic evidence is indirect, allowing the children of the leader to make hay while daddy (or as is as common, mummy) governs or rules. In several Asian countries, sons succeed fathers. Competence is implicit in several, but not all, of them. In Singapore, its long time Prime Minister and now senior minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, has sons and their wives in important cogs in the republic's wheel; one, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, will be prime minister before this year is out. In North Korea, Kim Chong Il succeed to the presidency when his father, Mr Kim Il Sung died in 1994. In Malaysia it varies. Two cabinet ministers owe their position to their late fathers: the second prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, and the third, Tun Hussein Onn and their sons, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak and Dato' Hishamuddin Tun Hussein sit in the cabinet. The DAP leader, Mr Lim Kit Siang, grooms his son, Mr Lim Guan Eng, to succeed him. It is considered a "right" to allow the children to make hay while their fathers shine.

He has not found his level in office yet, for political and practical reasons. His wife's debilitating illness diverts him when it should not. At home or office, half his mind is in the other. In office, a power struggle between his inner private office led by his son-in-law, the Oxbridge-educated Mr Khairi Jamaluddin, - the Scholars - and his Civil Service office led by his principal private secretary, Dato' Thajudeen Abdul Wahab - the Ninjas, adds to his other worries. Both are ambitious, would not allow the other to steal a march over him, but the infighting between their respective supporters does cast a pall on the Prime Minister's Office. At times this borders on the ridiculous. During a visit to Tokyo, Dato' Thajudeen orderfed Pak Lah's favourite dish, nasi lemak, frightfully expensive in Tokyo as one would imagine. Mr Khairi told his father-in-law not to touch it as his mother-in-law would not want him to. And sometimes, needless embarrassment, as when no one bothered to update his diary and Pak Lah went to another function in Malacca when he should have been at Parliament's farewell dinner for Tun Mahathir.

FEW KNOW HOW MANY MEGA projects there are. I think there are 19, although I can name but ten. A BN MP can think of eight, his Opposition colleague three more. The civil servant you think should know looks the other way when you ask him. It shows how secretive Tun Mahathir Mohamed was when he ordered them built. He wanted to build them to put his mark on Malaysia, but all he did was to bankrupt Malaysia. The only ones to benefit were crony business men, who built them at enormous cost, failed and bailed out with more mega projects. These parasitic capitalists cannot survive without fresh projects, and their tenure ended with Dr Mahathir's. Pak Lah had to be free of them, for these self-inflicted walking financial and commercial disasters could only pull him down. He inherited a bankrupt Treasury, cut, pruned or cancelled several projects; ignored the crony business men's call to be rescued, promised to reverse the Mahathir extravagance and bring Civil Service and politically accounting into fashion. He is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. So far he manages well. But for how long?

Could 850,000 civil servants obey this Civil Service rule about reporting assets and ignore every other? If the PSD wants civil servants to be free of corruption, it must use the big stick selectively so they would be fearful of asking or taking a bribe. It would not. The PSD does not oversee civil servants - at all levels - for corrupt pratice. Indeed, it encourages corruption by not even bothering if the civil servants filed their returns as the rules demand. What is the penalty promised? How many have been penalised? When he has to explain to the heads of departments who comes under the rules, it is clear that this rule about reporting assets is rarely enforced. The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, says he directs all ministers to reduce corruption in their ministries. He promised to pay close attention to the front-line departments, presumably those where corruption is most rampant.

How is it then that Pak Lah was not invited? Or, as some sources insist, he was but decided not to? There is already two camps in the Prime Minister's private office on who should have his ear. One is led by his son-in-law, Mr Khairi Jamaluddin, the other by his Civil Service secretary, Dato' Thajudeen Abdul Wahab, and it often recedes into petty farce. Once, in Tokyo, Dato' Thajudeen decided Pak Lah would be happy for a bite of local food and ordered nasi lemak, a pricey dish in Tokyo; Mr Khairi sent it back by insisting that his mother-in-law would not allow him to eat it. I do not know if this is apocryphal but it is a widely-quoted example civil war in Pak Lah's office. Which is why I am still uncertain who is right in how Pak Lah was in Malacca on the night of the planned dinner for his predecessor.

There was a time when titles were sparingly awarded. The former deputy prime minister, Tun Ghafar Baba, said in his nine years as chief minister of Malacca, he recommended only two men to be datos'. Less than 500 datos' were awarded in the first 15 years of independence. Today it is that many in a year. Johore would, in the 1950s, award two dato'ships a year - one from the Civil Service and the other from the public - with an extra one every five years. These rigid guidelines were happily discarded, and Johore has as many as 15 datos' for every day of the year. It is not much different in the other states. The rigid scrutiny was relaxed when money became an important consideration. How else would you ascribe to business men getting awards from the various states for no reason than that they have the money to buy them?

A FEW DAYS BEFORE HE relinquished office as Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, informed his successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, that he has asked the six retiring secretaries-general of ministries to stay on for two more years. This has become the norm. The first two-year extension is followed by another of a year, and if he is still needed, is given a sinecure that sometimes allows him to stay on till 70 years and beyond. It makes nonsense of the Civil Service retirement age of 56, and this extension, and how it is granted, frustrates those denied promotions because of the extension. But this was the norm - and not only in the Civil Service - during the Mahathir epoch. And he does not see why it should not continue under his successor. Pak Lah took office as Prime Minister on 01 November 2003, a Friday, within days of his 64th birthday. The secretaries-general had their terms extended on Monday, 04 November.

THE MAHATHIR EPOCH COMES TO rest this week - finally - after 22 years and with it the fiction of a Malaysia in fine fettle and in good hands after him. He leaves a spotty legacy of an autocracy, arrogance, capriciousness, imperiousness which cannot stand muster. As he lost his grip on the administration - his political impotence had its beginnings in 1987 when he engineered the destruction of UMNO to hang on to power, and worsened a decade later when he sacked the man who could have given him a more fitting memorial in history. As October 31 nears, the facade crumbles, he is ignored, his cronies and friends would rather be somewhere else when he meets them. Some friends planned a grand subscription dinner to farewell him in style. It would not now take place. They realised soon enough that it ought not to be held for fear that their friend could be insulted if it was. It had happened once. The Civil Service held a dinner in his honourf last year. All tickets were sold, but after arms were twisted. Many gave their tickets to the staff instead. An orderf that this is not allowed was ignored. The metaphoric slap in the face was not reflected in the euphoric account in the newspapers the next day, but the Old Man never forgot it.

There is more to come. If the Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat is as marginalised, in the overall power structure the BN set up, as the EC, the Cabinet, the Civil Service, the judiciary, the uniformed services have, it shows how much the system rots from within. Before the Mahathir epoch, there was still the semblance of civility, with the government, however autocratic within, paying more than lip service to parliamentary supremacy. More than the destruction of institutions is the fear in UMNO and, to a lesser extent, BN, that it cannot get public support or make drastic changes to itself before it ventures into the polls.

The Civil Service - and this is so in every facet of Government, not just the Civil Service - is divided in three distinctive groups: those who intellectually (if that is ever possible) with what Dr Mahathir and his government stands for and those who believe they are there to support the government in power; those who disagree and stay on the sidelines, and those who cannot afford to for family commitments; and those who throw in their lot to bring the government down, though all that is done in typical bureaucratic brilliance. I have met some who I thought came from the first group but are really with the third. This is where the government's problems begin. There is a quiet sabotage of government policies. This is possible because there is no monitoring or updates as it is implemented, and so there is no danger of being caught out. This is worsened by another speciality of the Mahathir epoch: the encouragement of civil servants to be in business. Many do that by collecting bribes and gratuities from favour seekers and others while an important cog in the Civil Service machine.

The political arrogance with which BN and UMNO - honed over 48 years of governanace - has led to ignoring the fundamental practices of democracy. The Malay is alienated. The Civil Service is alienated. Every branch of government is alienated. And they believe they wean them back with more threats and build a coccoon around the Government, blaming every one else when all hell breaks loose. This siege mentality is so severe that few Government MPs and state assemblymen dare visit their constituencies except under heavy escort. Even the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, would not, preferring Monaco and other exotic locations: he does not want to be face-to-face with his detractors in a forum he could not dominate. Without an official paraphernalia to surround the MP, he is a fish out of water. The Government protects BN and UMNO by making it difficult for the Opposition to challenge it. It makes it financially burdensome to challenge the political might of BN. But that is not a hurdle now. It deliberately restricts the democratic process, but it is a matter of time when it would be caught short at the polls.

Dr Mahathir hands over power to his chosen deputy, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in three months. Both have modified their views of an incorruptible Malaysian Civil Service to now say a few rotten apples have raised corruption to a fine art. They now demand that should cease and desist, that damnation is their fate if they persist, that the law will take its course. So, civil servants beware. But they would not accept that corruption exists not only in the Civil Service but amongst the politicians, the cabinet, the state executive councils, the judiciary, the armed forces, the police, in short, in every nook and corner of officialdom in Malaysia. Corruption is as Malaysian as nasi lemak: one as official food, the other as the food of the masses.

That is why he is favoured but not those who spent years in the jungle so this would not be the Communist Republic of Malaya. These fellows should be grateful that Malaysia allowed them an exquisite chance to show their patriotism and nationalism. How can they now carp that they are forgotten. What new evidence of their patriotism and nationalism can they show to be recognised. Well the cronies can. They feed their patriotism and nationalism by corrupting the Civil Service and politicians. They should be recognised. Which is what Dato' Seri Nazri and others do.

In other words, with Muslim women now flowering into a society the Prophet Muhammad had envisaged, the man use the religion he founded to push them back into the pre-Islam condition of bondage. I would argue that the prominence women have in business, Civil Service, the professions is a reflection of their role designed for them in Islam, and should be encouraged. In Malaysia, concomittant with this development is that Malay men find themselves at a disadvantage for a variety of reasons and react in primordial fury. It would not reverse the clock. The women would in time soften that blow as they become more prominent in public life. But they cannot when the role of women is viewed in the Islam practiced here as a sexual appendage.

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