UMNO DID NOT KNOW what hit it when it sacked its deputy president in 1998; nor that it would fight for its life today because of it. That intemperate misjudged vendetta is the cause of its misfortune and its lingering death. The UMNO president, Dato' Seri (Tun as he now is) Mahathir Mohamed moved to destroy his deputy president who he felt had grown too big for his boots, and did by denying him his rights. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in short, was drummed out of UMNO, and sacked as deputy prime minister. He and his supporters took to the streets. That led to his arrest, he was battered to an inch of his life, he was charged with Corruption and sodomy, convicted of both in what is a traversity of justice, jailed. It should have destroyed him. It did not.

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.

The UMNO supreme council elections later this month would be one indication. The UMNO opposition to Pak Lah is leaderless and defused; the strongest is led by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. Those who back Dato' Seri Anwar are leaderless and without direction. Now it is possible that the two forces could combine with others similarly inclined into an anti-Pak Lah faction. If Pak Lah thought he could get a free ride in the UMNO supreme council elections, he would have to think twice. The UMNO candidates are headless, and the most serious issue amongst them is the need for tutorials on bribery and Corruption aka money politics. The candidates, nevertheless, offer bribes in cash and kind to delegates that those who do not, or cannot, are widely said to be no-hopers. But the Anwar acquittal – no matter how one looks at it, he has won this round hands down – could cause delegates to ignore the bribes they have accepted to vote for those with a principled stand.

THIS IS THE FIRST UMNO election in which everyone, from the president down to the delegate to the general assembly, is guilty of Corruption in one form or another. It is the only common issue. When Corruption is as widespread as this, a code of ethics and a disciplinary board to make sure it is followed are as irrelevant as an ice-cube on a hot plate. The board chairman, the former foreign minister Tengku Ahmad Rithaudeen, is clueless on what his duties are. This is to be expected. The ethics code changes with the weather and what is allowed one day is disallowed another.

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 UMNO ELECTIONS is for its general assembly delegates a time to make hay while the sun shines. This year's, next month, is no different. The more the leaders rail about Corruption and the need to stamp it, the more it prevails in often ill-disguised forms. In past years, UMNO at least could control it. This year it cannot. Much as the acting UMNO president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is against it in principle, his actions belies his words. No one believes he is serious.

Heather Li: Hello and welcome to The Editors, I'm Heather Li in Singapore. Tonight NGOs, Non-Profit Non Government Organisations. Amid the gravest of human tragedies, NGOs are often a lone voice against government complacency and Corruption. But are they always a force for good and to whom are they accountable?

Corruption AND ABUSE OF power is the staple of the UMNO politician. One cannot exist without the other; indeed, the worthy judges has decided, in the Anwar Ibrahim trial, that one is the other, that money and abuse of power go hand in hand. In UMNO, it is used with impunity. If money will not get what an UMNO politician wants, he uses all the power in his command to get it. It does not matter if the politician wants to be UMNO president or branch chairman.

THE PRINCIPLE IN THE Anwar Ibrahim affair, for which he was convicted and is in jail, is that power abused for personal benefit is Corruption. The traditional meaning that Corruption involves money is stood on its head. The federal court affirmed this principle when it dismissed his appeal on the first set of charges. It is reluctant to hear the second set. It does not matter why. But it warns all in high office not to abuse power for personal ends or gains. Why Dato' Seri Anwar is in the mess he is in is irrelevant, even if he would not be if he had not defied his mentor and then prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed.

IN THE RUNUP TO the 21 March general election, a controversial advertisement appeared in the Chinese newspapers which raised many an eyebrow: Tun Mahathir Mohamed ran an administration for 22 years - it was coyly described as 'previous government' - that was 'corrupt and rotten to the core' ... with no aspect of life untainted by Corruption', but that of his successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is suffuced and cloaked in integrity and righteousness. It pledged an open and transparent system of governance. There is nothing unusual about it. It is standard practice for the new BN and UMNO leader on taking the highest political office to claim he cuts a new path, that his predecessor was wrong, and he would not make those mistakes.

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, still struggles for a voice. He makes promises and orders on the fly, but with little to show for it. His anti-Corruption campaign is dead. It cannot be otherwise, unless he is prepared to have too many high ranking and politically important UMNO leaders face the music. He has yet to find his ground, the victory that was to be his is mired in controversy and doubt that his National Front (BN) victory in the March general election could not benefit from it. His government drifts as surely as his predecessor's on its last days, and a belief that all is well because Pak Lah says so. His overwhelming victory is his albatross: the chances he wants to make he cannot, for fear that those he drops could be powerful opponents. So he makes statements that mean little or nothing, but dressed up as the most signficant ever. The mainstream newspapers exaggerate its importance by giving it front page treatment.

Pak Lah campaigned in the constituency four times during the eight-day campaign. So did several BN and UMNO leaders. There was only one thing wrong with the BN strategy: there was none. The candidate was flawed. He turned out to have a past, who refused to award a contract to an UMNO company because he refused a receipt for a bribe of RM30,000, reduced from RM50,000, in return for a contract to clean the walls of the National Mosque for a year. He was widely known in Permatang Pauh as 'Tok Imam Duit' and 'Tok Imam Rasuah', the imam for money and Corruption respectively. The campaign went from bad to worse. Pak Lah was surrounded by cheering voters when he first arrived; he wound down his window, to be confronted by an unfurled large size portrait of Dato' Seri Anwar, and asked: 'Ingat dia?' (Remember him?). They were ruder with Ustaz Pirdaus: when he shook hands with him, they had five sen coins in their palms when they passed to him, an insult. Worse, when they mobbed his car al la Pak Lah, he wound down the windows and people threw coins into the car.

This wide gulf between intention and reality is so far apart that one wonders why cabinet ministers bother to parade their ignorance so proudly. But BN cabinet ministers have a long tradition of this. They all come from the Marie "if they don't have bread, why don't they eat cake" Antoinettee school of public concern. The requires all in public office to belief in the utter rubbish they spout. We have a new prime minister. Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on taking office, chartered a policy which promised an all-out war on Corruption, full public accountability, a sterling call for people to work with him to turn this blessed country others would be proud of. He started well. Three prominent Malaysians, including a cabinet minister, were charged with Corruption. His law minister promised action against 18 "big fish".

When Pak Lah showed his uncertainty in office, by not taking the limited harsh decisions he could without upsetting the UMNO ground, and looked the other way when hard and harsh decisions had to be taken, his own grip on power became uncertain. All this is glossed over. He now hopes that without a contest, he could establish his hold on UMNO. Perhaps. But he would from now have to fear the warlords more than the Opposition. It would not be pleasant. He has to recycle what every new prime minister promises, only to forget about them within months, and demand stricter expectations of the elected, with report cards to match. He has in the meanwhile forgotten about his stirring words about controlling Corruption. The one minister who dared to suggest that 18 "big fish" await to be charged for Corruption is moved to a minor portfolio. Meanwhile, all over Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere, a rash of stencilled signs marked "18?" are painted on walls. City council workers are busy painting them out, only for it to reappear a few days later. But the message is clear: only 18 "big fish"? One must wonder if the UMNO elections is of a battle won but a war lost.

He is, paradoxically, under greater pressure now to perform. With greater expectations amongst the new elected, especially of cabinet and state executive committee positions, the more pressure Pak Lah puts on the state chiefs, the greater the possibility of incipient revolts within. He could not prune his cabinet for anyone pruned could make common cause with either the warlords or the anti-Pak Lah faction, which whatever the official media might say, does exist. Since Corruption plays a large role in this buying of support, Pak Lah must close one eye to his first plank, on taking office, of containing Corruption. He might have to forget it altogether.

Pak Lah rests on his record after he became Prime Minister. There is not much to talk of, although he announced several policies, but mainly stuck because of internal opposition, within the cabinet and the civil service. The widespread attack on Corruption has ground to a halt, after three high profile arrests. When the candidates are known this week, several accused of rampant Corruption, investigated by the Anti-Corruption Agency, but which could go further because the Prime Minsiter of the day would not allow it, would be candidates. The Tok Guru has opened one more issue that Pak Lah must answer. What has upset the BN is that PAS directs its attacks and taunts on its leader, forcing him to justify whatever is claimed about his religosity by his spin doctors. If Islam was not the issue, the Tok Guru would have been justifiably criticised. Not this time. But instead of taking on Tok Guru, the BN and Pak Lah decided to be defensive. Why?

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, kicked off his slipping into office with a promise to go after the corrupt, however high and close to the levers of power, but after two high profile arrests, both Tan Sris, and a handful of civil servants, the campaign grinds to a spluttering stop. The de facto justice minister, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, announced, out of the blue, that 18 "big fish" are under investigation, not all would be brought to trial if only because the cases against them cannot be sustained in a court of law. This shifted attention from the anti-Corruption drive to who could be amongst the dozen and a half men and women. That was not a long time coming. Two cabinet ministers, Datin Rafidah Aziz and Dato' Seri Nazri Aziz, denied they were, with Datin Rafidah promising to sue Opposition leaders if they dared target her. Several of them invited her to sue them. How she could succeed in her defamation beats me, even if the Malaysian courts have a well-earned reputation for expedience against the weight of the law. The Anti-Corruption Agency had investigated her, as numerous cabinet ministers, including seven National Front (BN) party leaders, but no further action was taken because the Prime Minister of the day, in this instance, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, would not allow prosecution to proceed. That is then taken as proof that those investigated are as pure as driven snow.

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, was firm when he declared war on Corruption. But it now looks more like President George Bush's disarrayed war on terror. It turns awry before one's eyes. A business man, a cabinet minister, a few middle level civil servants are arrested and charged in court for Corruption. Another 18 VIPs await their turn in court. The minister in charge of justice, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, says most would be prosecuted, but some could not for want of convictable evidence. The cabinet is frightened sick of the policeman's knock, after what happened to a colleague, Tan Sri Kasitah Gaddam, and wants Pak Lah to slow down. One cabinet minister's house is raided while he is overseas. The market is rife with rumours of who next. The arrests though did not have the impact he expected from a society fed up of the creeping Corruption around it and government inaction. The opposition dismissed it as an election gimmick. So did many a man on the street, he who would not be allowed to say their piece in the mainstream newspapers. No, says Pak Lah. It is a campaign to rid Malaysia of this evil, which to be fair until he took office did not officially exist. But there has been so many false starts and promises in the paste that it is taken as read that this is the new broom putting his mark while he still has the respect, as a new boy, of the street.

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is caught in a crisis of his own making. A Mahathir crony and a once prominent business man, Tan Sri Eric Chia, is arrested three days ago and charged with Corruption committed when he was head of Perwaja Steel in the mid-1990s. This morning (12 February 2004), the land and cooperative development minister, Tan Sri Kasitah Gadam, is charged for what he is alleged to have done in the late 1990s. Arrested with him is the Sabah land development board general manager, Dato' Wasli Mohamed Said. The two Tan Sris are released on bail of RM2 million and RM1 million respectively. Another Tan Sri is widely believed to be arrested soon. The Anti-Corruption Agency investigated one for nine years and the other for four, and produced them with Pak Lah wanted to prove his stated commitment to root out Corruption. It raises more questions than answers.

WHEN THE ANTI-Corruption Agency (ACA) arrested Perwaja Steel's former managing director, Tan Sri Eric Chia, this week (09 Feb), it raised more questions than answers. Perwaja Steel was to have been Malaysia's crowning jewel in its idiosyncratic bid to be an industrialised country by 2020. He is arrested and charged in court nine years after the ACA began investigations into this Mahathir crony's stewardship of the now shut-down Perwaja Steel. ACA had wrapped up its case years ago, but it was never allowed to prosecute. It now acts because the new Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has to show he is not tied to his predecessor's apron strings.

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