In Sarawak, the BN leader, Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, is in absolute and autocratic control for two decades, with no plans to step down. Revolt in the air. There is a move, with UMNO's and Kuala Lumpur's backing, to force him to step down. If he refuses, the other parties in the state BN coalition would leave the coalition, isolating his Parti Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu (the United Pesaka Bumiputra Party of PBB). Sarawak has been the stranglehold of Tan Sri Abdul Taib and his estranged and now infirm uncle, Tun Abdul Rahman Ya'akob. The state is run as a personal fiefdom, in much the same as the late Tun Datu Mustapha bin Datu Harun once ran Sabah.

Several cabinet ministers, including Dato' Seri Abdullah, has links to silat martial arts groups, whose members are prepared to die for their patrons. A former Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Harun Idris, had a praetorian guard of silat groups, whose services he called upon with impunity. The prime minister might think FSFM is a crazy offshoot of a demented individual. But can he deny that he was the patron of the Ex-Commandos Association of Malaysia, whose members disrupted the 1987 UMNO general election to ensure he was returned UMNO president. It was organised by the then future deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. When he was sacked, jailed and humiliated in 1998, this organisation split and no longer regards Dr Mahathir as its patron. That many of their members swear fealty to Dato' Seri Anwar and, oddly, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah frightens many in the government. But a genie once released from a bottle cannot be put back in.

Dr Lim's logic is faulty or he is lying, it does not matter which. How did Dr Mahathir tell him in 1999 that he and Dr Ling retires is 2003? One should not worry about rubbish like this. We expect that of our hardworking, selfless leaders. The most important attribute of them is that would rather destroy the country and all it stands for than be denied of their right to serve the people. The MIC president, Dato' Seri Samy Vellu, is the epitome of selfless service even when most would rather see him put to pasture. He is the MIC leader for 24 years and has proudly announced he would not quit until at least until he celebrates his third decades in office. In Sabah, we have heard of Tun Datu Mustapha Datu Harun, who ruled with an iron fist and for decades. But he did not understand the rules, and the BN, regretfully, had to send him packing. In Sarawak, every BN leader in the state holds true to the BN's founding resolution, and stay on in office against all odds.

What does this tell you of Sabah politics? That it has only one constant rule: loyalty is to the highest bidder. It was a policy the BN, in its nearly 40 years in power, established with a vengeance. The master of that was the late Tun Datu Mustapha bin Datu Harun, who ruled the state with an iron hand, throwing money and Islam at the people with equal abandon, establishing the cardinal principle that no politician is worth his salt if he is not buyable. Millions of ringgit are offered, and accepted, for changing loyalties and political parties.

Kuala Lumpur had nurtured them in a tit-for-tat with the Philippines for its claim to Sabah. It had actively fomented rebellion in Mindanao, with Malaysian politicians including the fomer prime minister and defence minister, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein (the father of the defence minister, Dato' Seri Najib, and uncle of the sports and culture minister, Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein) and the late Sabah strongman, Tun Datu Mustapha bin Datu Harun led the Malaysian charge, training Filipino dissidents in Malaysia, providing funds and all help, even at one point the Malaysian Navy pressed into service to rescue some rebels fleeing from the Philippines Navy. That support, though drastically reduced, has built a pipeline which it cannot shut off with impunity, without risking a retaliation.

The four candidates were the former state secretary, Tan Sri Hamid Egoh, the federal minister, Tan Sri Kasitah Gadam, Dato' Seri Panglima Ampong Puyong, Dato' Ahmad Shah; a fifth, Tan Sri Harris Salleh would not allow his name to be sput forward. The Sabah deputy chief minister and finance minister, and Sabah UMNO chief, Dato' Musa Aman, is the brother-in-law of Tan Sri Hamid Egoh. Tan Sri Kasitah Gadam pushed his claim as a Mahathir loyalist and as a Kadazandusun, the main tribal group in Sabah. Dato' Sri Panglima Puyon, the most senior of those in the running, is an old timer, a comrade-in-arms of the late UMNO leader, Tun Datu Mustapha Datu Harun, who retired into relative obscurity in recent years. Dato' Ahmad Shah, a Bajau and deputy head of the Persatuan Sabah Bajau Bersatu (the Sabah United Bajau Association), backed by the PSBB president, former chief minister and a Mahathir acolyte, Tan Sri Salleh Said Keruak, who is close to Dr Mahathir.

The Mindanao Muslim demand for autonomy, and Manila's claim to Sabah, were issues Kuala Lumpur and Manila exploited to the full. But it is Kuala Lumpur alone that is blamed, because it dealt with, and backed with funds and other support, the Muslim irredentists. The late Sabah chief minister, Tun Mustapha bin Datu Harun, openly backed the Mindanao rebels, Malaysia gave shelter to several Mindanao rebels. I have met many a secessionist Muslim Filipino leader in Kuala Lumpur at the time, All had Malaysian passports issued in Kota Kinabalu. The Moro National Liberation Front leader, Mr Nur Misuari, when I interviewed him in Tripoli, Libya, in 1976, was there on a Malaysian passport.

Tan Sri Abdullah now has a benign view of the Tenku. It was anything but at the time. He was amongst the small group of plotters -- amongst whom, besides him, included Dato' Harun Idris, later mentri besar of Selangor; Mr Abdullah Majid; one Dr Mahathir bin Mohamed; one Mr Musa Hitam; all led by the master dalang of the day, Tun Abdul Razak, the father of the defence minister -- which plotted the Tengku's downfall. The May 13 riots in 1969, three days after the general elections, provided the excuse. And in the early years of Tun Razak as prime minister, his personal staff, which included Tan Sri Abdullah, deliberately destroyed the Tengku's files to erase whatever memory there may have been in government. I saw one such destruction in the early 1970s, rescued the files from the waste paper basket, which happened to be the top secret files relating to Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia, found it too hot to handle, called the Tun's principal private secretary, Mr (later Tan Sri) Zain Azraai, who decided it should be delivered to the National Archives. Which I promptly did the next morning.

His mistake, in retrospect, was to enter Parliament when opposition within UMNO to Tun Razak's developmental and political policies could not be staunched. And attracting political enemies, especially in UMNO, as flies to food, who went for the kill after the Tun died in January 1976. He was deputy minister at the time of his arrest. Amongst his enemies was the then mentri besar of Selangor, Dato' Harun Idris, and Tan Sri Syed Jaafar Albar, the father of the foreign minister. The new prime minister, the aristocratic and patrician Dato' (as he then was) Hussein Onn, was seen as a stopgap but he, like the Tengku, had nerves of steel and a belief in his own judgement, would not interfere. He was close then to the new deputy prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, then the stormy petrel, expelled by the Tengku from UMNO and brought back by the Tun. But Dr Mahathir could not interfere -- as he knows his current deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, could not. The two were amongst the Tun's stormtroopers, and key to the policy of establishing closer links with Moscow to offset the Chinese influence in Malaysia. But that is another facet of Malaysian politics that one day must be told.

Dr Ling believes he can survive amidst UMNO uncertainty. So he attacks his nemesis, and paints a rosy picture of an MCA under his leadership. But UMNO has laid a trap on him. If Dr Ling would not step down by mid-November, the Soh Chee Wen trial would run its course, that he would wish he had. He is in the same predicament the former Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Harun Idris, who refused, when charged with corruption in the 1970s, an offer to be Malaysia's permanent representative at the United Nations, and ended in jail instead. A more recent example is Dato' Seri Anwar, who fought on and refused to resign. UMNO leaders would be hard put to explain why they want the MCA president saved when they would not UMNO leaders.

The list of those who did not include Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who was convicted of sodomy and corruption after a failed putsch against the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed. He was offered, in lieu of a certain jail sentence and public humiliation, exile in South Africa or London with funds so he could live as a deputy prime minister-in-exile and did not return so long as Dr Mahathir was in office. He went to jail. So, the former Selangor UMNO strongman and chief minister, Dato' Seri Harun Idris. He refused an earlier offer to be Malaysian ambassador to the United States.

More worrying though is Dato' Seri Rais' statement that the law would be amended so that there can be no mistake or doubt the police is right when it is wrong. When the burden of proof is legislated away for traffic offences because the police act illegally, it sets a precedent for the Public Prosecutor to have the law amended to remove it for criminal and more serious offences. Laws passed by fiat by the National Operations Council after the 13 May 1969 riots (whose executive secretary was one Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) is now used to remove the accused's rights in criminal trials. The cabinet minister, Dato' Mokhtar Hashim, was convicted for murder, and sentenced to hang (though that was commuted to life; he is now free and back in UMNO politics), as was the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and the Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Harun Idris. It is invoked when the Public Prosecutor wants a conviction or does not have enough evidence to convict. Since laws are passed without debate or time for it, these provisions are slipped in without anyone the wiser.

The late chief minister of Sabah, Tun Mustapha bin Datu Harun, was a key figure in the Mindanao rebellion, with Kuala Lumpur closing its blind eye to it. The Philippines had laid claim to Sabah, and this was Kuala Lumpur's response. The second Malaysian prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, had provided Malaysian bases to train the rebels, and some of these continue to exist to this day. His successor, Tun Hussein Onn, however, closed down several of these, only to be revived under the fourth, Dr Mahathir. When Mr Nur Misuari, who for years enjoyed Malaysia's patronage and protection while he waged his war from his stronghold in the south against Manila, was arrested recently on a Malaysian island and sent back, Kuala Lumpur took a black eye for it from its Malay nationalists opposed to it. If this war on terror goes on for much longer, it could be, for Dr Mahathir, the biter bit.

The Law Profession Qualifying Board must expect its decisions to be challenged. The former Federal Court judge, Tan Sri Harun Hashim's comment about the public good being more important than the fate of a few individuals would eventually prevail. But not after numerous law suits challenging the Board's decision. Rightly so.

Mr Nur Misuari is an enigma: a well-thought-of university lecturer in Manila who defected from the elite in Manila in the 1970s to fight for southern Philippine (Moro) independence. Malaysia encouraged him, indeed funded him, through the late Tun Datu Mustapha bin Datu Harun, the then iron man of Sabah. He travelled on a Malaysian passport for years; I would meet him often, in the 1970s, when he used to live in the cheap hotels in the area in Kuala Lumpur I live in, and in Tripoli, Libya, when I was there in 1976. His connexions with the Malaysian government were obviously informal, but he had had no difficulty then to meet whomsoever he wanted. He was a pawn in the Philippines claim to Sabah, but he was also caught up in the Muslim support for independence of Muslim provinces in non-Muslim states. When he was appointed the governor of the Autonomous Muslim Mindanao Region, he made officials visits to Sabah and Malaysia. He was closer to the ousted and jailed former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and this made some of the Prime Minister's men distance themselves from him.

Taib was too powerful to defy. How federal UMNO decided to put down the Sabah strongman, Tun Datu Mustapha bin Datu Harun, is a classic example on how not to behave in unwelcome territory: UMNO has to watch its back there even if the chief minister is from it. Forced into a corner, federal UMNO tries to distance itself from its putative Malay forces in the state.

Where the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia now is was for half a century Malaysia's pristine forest reserve of several hundred acres. The Selangor mentri besar of the day, Dato' Harun Idris, and his executive council, allowed the forest reserve to be logged of mature virgin timber and offered the site for the university. When the public became aware of his ecological rape, the deed was done. Dato' Harun pleaded ignorance about its value as a forest reserve or indeed if it was one and blamed his executive council and civil servants for not telling him of its value. The forest department was not consulted: when money is there to be made in the bushels, no one, not even a chief minister, wants to be told he cannot.

Unfortunately, what she can do depends on how well Tan Sri Dzaiddin can stop the rot in his bailliwick. The rot began not with Tun Salleh Abas's judicial castration in 1988, when he was removed as Lord President, but what caused his removal, the previous year. In 1987, Mr Justice Harun Hashim, later of the federal court, usurped the power of the Registrar of Societies to declare UMNO illegal. It was a decision the Prime Minister wanted to stop his political rival, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, in his tracks. The UMNO lawyer, now Mr Justice Gopal Sri Ram of the Court of Appeal, to everyone's amazement wanted his client, UMNO, to be declared illegal. Tun Salleh, returning from Mecca after performing umrah prayers, told his companion, a high ranking UMNO official, that the decision was wrong and if appealed, as it probably would, would be set right. This is not what the Prime Minister wanted to hear. And he set up the chain of events that eventually sacked Tun Saleh.

Within UMNO itself, after Tun Abdul Razak's unexpected death in January 1976, there was no clear cut successor. Tun Razak had, as Tan Sri Abdullah, points out in his New Straits Times column "On The Record" (NST, 26 September 00, p12), identified a brood of politicians who could take over from him. Amongst them were Dr Mahathir, Tengku Razaleigh, Dato' Musa Hitam, Tun Ghafar Baba. Indeed, if Tengku Razaleigh had joined the cabinet, instead of continuing to head Petronas and Bank Bumiputra Malaysia Berhad, after the 1974 general elections, he would have been deputy prime minister under Tun Hussein. But he miscalculated. He was not an outsider. The outsider was Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, the then home minister. When Tun Hussein wanted him as deputy prime minister, the three UMNO vice presidents -- Ghafar Baba, Tengku Razaleigh, Dr Mahathir -- in a demarche said none would serve if one of them was not appointed deputy prime minister. Only the three said they would not serve, not as Tan Sri Abdullah insists the UMNO Supreme Council. Ghafar was not considered, Tengku Razaleigh was not in the cabinet, leaving only Dr Mahathir, who was. This was done in anti-Hussein surroundings, in the fallout from the Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Harun Idris's arrest for corruption, with his backers accusing close aides of Tun Razak as being pro-communist. This led to Tan Sri Abdullah's detention under the Internal Security Act for five years. But that is another story.
Tan Sri Abdullah is right when he suggests Tan Sri Lee and the MCA president preferred Tengku Razaleigh to Dato Seri Mahathir Mohamed as UMNO deputy president and therefore deputy prime minister after Dato (later Tun) Hussein Onn became Prime Minister in 1976 after Tun Abdul Razak Hussein died in London. He was close to Tengku Razaleigh, and he paid the price by being forced to resign. There was no question that UMNO stabbed him in the back. He miscalculated in his support for who should be UMNO president and paid dearly. He had to go. The MCA leaders themselves decided it could not have as president one who backed the Prime Minister's rival. That they did underlines not that the MCA has Chinese support but when the crunch comes, they had no choice but to kill their leader for putting lucrative contracts at risk. The non-Malay parties in the National Front survive, especially after the 1969 riots, by destroying their own standing with their communities if their leader's links with the UMNO president suffers. The MCA leaders' ability to shoot themselves in the foot when everything works in their favour is uncanny. It also makes Tan Sri Lee's claim the MCA had Chinese support even more questionable. When Dr Mahathir became Prime Minister in 1981, Tan Sri Lee's political career had come to an end, especially when Tengku Razaleigh prepared to challenge Dr Mahathir for the UMNO presidency after Dato' (now Tan Sri) Musa Hitam was appointed deputy prime minister. The MCA realised that with Tan Sri Lee as their leader, it would suffer at the hands of a vindictive Prime Minister. So, he had to go. That paradoxically proved how misguided Tan Sri Lee was at his victory in Seremban in the 1982 general elections.

But it was this sticking to the forms, while the Chinese community began a rear-guard action to change the concords agreed to at independence, strengthened by UMNO anger at the significant Chinese community's sympathy and support for Indonesia during the Confrontation. The hartal in 1967 in Penang, to protest at the removal of English as an official language, set the pace to remove the Tengku and keep the Chinese in place. The Labour Party's funeral procession of a shot activist during the election campaign, and the Alliance's poor showing, led to the May 13 riots. The official version is challenged, as public documents, especially in those released in foreign countries of diplomatic reports of the moment, suggest the collusion of the then deputy prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, and in which the two stalking horses for the Tengku was one Dr Mahathir and the former mentri besar of Selangor, Dato' Harun Idris. It provided UMNO to stage a coup against the Alliance, to ensure that Malay dominance would dictate the future Malaysian governments. The New Economic Policy, with its pro-Malay economic and political objectives, was pushed through, with neither the MCA nor MIC challenged; the MCA president, Tun Tan Siew Sin, resigned from the cabinet amidst the riots, and that marginalised ever since both MCA and MIC in future governments. Tun Razak, as sharp a political operator as the Tengku, effectively sidelined the MCA, first be removing from it the portfolios of finance and of commerce and industry, and then encouraging the split within it with the appointment of Dr Lim Kheng Yaik, now Dato' Seri and in the cabinet, then a leading figure in the reform-minded Chinese Unity Movement against the MCA leadership. The then deputy prime minister, Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, described the MCA, rightly, as "neither dead nor alive".

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