Tun Mahathir spoke what was happening in the world, but it was not what Western diplomatics, including the EU representatives and the British ambassador, wanted to hear. They walked out. Earlier, the NGOs, which prescribe their narrow points of view on rest of the world but not in their eventual countries of origin, protested Tun Mahathir's Human Rights record before the event, and most boycotted the event. As they would. They thought that their protests would stop Tun Mahathir, so the Western diplomats would not have to walk out. I fault Tun Mahathir on a lot of things, but speaking what is right, especially of matters Islamic and the Middle East, is not one of them. He is part of what is wrong with UMNO's rule of Malaysia, but his role in the larger picture was ignored until he resigned as Prime Minister after 22 years. Today, he is ignored at home, the changes at Proton, where he is adviser, took place without his knowledge, as he himself, had admitted, but his comments on wold topics are eagerly awaited. He is, like Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, a Prime Minister was not educated in England. He is the best example of an UMNO leader who could throw fear into Western eyes in what he says, as the Human Rights talk last Friday revealed.

They are frightened that the Federal Court tomorrow would allow his request to rehear its decision to dismiss his appeal against the corruption conviction and sentence. The former Attorney-General and now head of the national Human Rights organisation, Suhakam, Tan Sri Abu Talib Osman, says the federal court had no right to review its own judgements. He is wrong. It can, in the M.G.G. Pillai case. But his statement is calculated to pressure the federal court to dismiss it in the Anwar case. There is no guarantee yet if it would allow the Anwar appeal. But if it does not, the little hope that the Anwar release gave to the judiciary would be wiped out, even if the decision is on valid grounds. Tan Sri Abu Talib should have kept quiet; for his statement is seen as undue pressure on the federal court judges. But it also reflects the nervousness about Dato' Seri Anwar. For him, it does not matter as much: his argument is that since the sodomy charges cannot be sustained, how could he then misuse his authority to investigate it when it was first raised long before his arrest? If he gets his review, he would have wait a year or more before the federal court rehears his case. Whatever happens, he would return to active politics in April 2008. So, why is the government, UMNO, BN, and others so nervous?

But can such allegations be brushed away so cavalierly as the authorities have done? Talk to the hundreds of Malaysians detained under the ISA, many who went on to high positions in public life, and in private they would tell you of the horrific treatment they got in the first 60 days of their incarceration, when they had no access to the outside world, kept in shabby and unhygienic conditions, ill-treated, humiliated, and otherwise made to remember that if they did not co-operate, there would be hell to pay. They are told what to say when they meet their families, or cabinet ministers or Human Rights organisations. If they did not, they would have to answer for it when they returned to their cells.

For this election polarised the electorate so dramatically that this would widen, not narrow, in the coming years. The ground anger in the Malay states is real. In any election, one can more or less predict the result even before the voting is over. In the four Malay states, it was PAS, not the BN, that was perceived to be leading, that even the local BN was as surprised as the opposition at what happened. More people went out to vote in these states than ever before. As the former PAS MP, Mr Mohamed Sabu, told me last night: "I accept my defeat but not the flawed electoral process which caused it." What should worry Pak Lah is that this residual anger is widespread amongst the Malays in the four states, and in states like Pahang and Selangor where the EC had wrought its electoral magic. The belief that the people's choice is not heard is real, the despondency is real, the anger is real, the mood to defy is real, which even the police seem to realise: when the opposition leaders gathered outside the National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) office yesterday, the fully armed police watched the more than 2,000 crowd from a respectable distance. It knew how volatile it was. Last night, more than 10,000 gathered at the PAS headquarters in Taman Melawar, Gombak, to watch the life telecast of the former Trengganu mentri besar, Dato' Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, talking to his supporters - one estimate put the crowd there at 50,000 - at his mosque in Rusila, outside of Kuala Trengganu.

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