THE MALAYSIAN TAMIL MONTHLY, Semparuti (Hibiscus), in June asked critical questions about the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC)'s proposed Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology (AIMST) in Kedah. It wondered whether MIC could proceed with AMIST if fundamental student grievances -- untrained lecturers, indifferent management, poor or no facilities, over regimentation, refusal to resolve grievances -- in another institute it owns and runs, Tafe College in Seremban, remains un-addressed. The reports hit a raw nerve.

The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, returned on Saturday, 20 July 2002, to the venue of his unscripted resignation for the third annual dinner of the UMNO Overseas Clubs Alumni Organisation (Pertubuhan Alumni Kelab-Kelab UMNO Luar Negara) at the Putra World Trade Centre's (PWTC) Dewan Merdeka. He had harsh words for Kedah UMNO, without naming it, for not pulling its weight during the Pendang and Anak Bukit bye-elections. PAS retained its votes in 1999, its loss and win proof UMNO has yet to regain the Malay vote. This was not what they had come to hear, and so heard it in deafening silence. The BN tactic is to swamp a byelection with more outside help than voters once worked. Not any more. The highhandedness, the promises unkept, work started to impress ending the day after polling no matter who won, the arrogance after impede in getting the vote. The BN works a workable theory to death, and cannot understand why.

Nothing changed in the Kedah bye-eletions yesterday. UMNO now has 8 MPs and PAS 7, instead of the other way around before the PAS president, Dato' Fadhil Noor's death; UMNO is one short of a two-thirds majority in the Kedah state assembly, the minimum it insists it needs to rule comfortably. UMNO won the Pendang parliamentary constituency and PAS the Anak Bukit state assembly constituency, that Dato' Fadhil held. The Malay in Kedah took the diplomatic way out: return UMNO in one and PAS in the other. But with a sting in the tail. He denied UMNO's "need" for a two-thirds majority. National Front bye-elections campaigns look like hammers out to swat flies, proof yet, we are told, of the BN's concern for the people, especially at election time. So in Pendang and Anak Bukit.

The Universiti Utara Malaya in Kedah is one of Malaysia's forgettable institutions of higher learning built for a political purpose in the northern state of Kedah. It is staffed, as universities are these days, by timeservers from the civil service and academia, with no pretense to be good at anything but to send out into the unemployment market thousands of graduates who should not have been allowed to pass the Higher School Certificate. Academic research is discouraged, lecturers no more than bored, clueless civil servants.

So in this UMNO "sandiwara" which backfired, the UMNO president, and prime minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, cried wolf once too often. The delegates at the UMNO general assembly looked upon in disbelief when out of the blue he cried, announced his resignation, and withdrew it within the hour. He left for a ten-day holiday the next morning and has not spoken to the country since. We are told, not by him, he would stay on until the Organisation of Islamic Countries summit in October 2003. The mood is orchestrated to have him return in glory. The future leaders are unenthusiastic at the prospect. And face an electoral test sooner than they wanted it. Within 17 hours of Dr Mahathir's political seppukku, the PAS president and Leader of the Opposition, died. UMNO faces two bye-elections -- for parliament and the Kedah state assembly. The elections commission has decided it should be on 18 July.

That he was at odds with the party on occasion was in his view proof that PAS was a democratic institution. He represents the moderating influence in PAS, one that was there from its earliest days when the UMNO religious wing became the Pan Malayan Islamic Party (PMIP), the precursor of PAS. He is, unlike those in control of PAS, from the West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, from Kedah, which is also the home state of Dr Mahathir. Past PAS presidents have always been from the West Coast. When I sounded out PAS leaders and members about this, there were as many who thought this tradition must be maintained as those who thought it did not matter.

A crowd estimated at between 8,000 and 10,000 gathered at the Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM) at Cheras following the death there of the PAS President and Federal Leader of the Opposition, Dato' Fadhil Noor. Among those who paid their last respects was the Sultan of Kedah. The prison authorities, I understand, refused to allow Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim to pay his last respects. The body would be flown to Kedah where he would be buried this evening.

What companies did Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar take over? MMC, Pernas, Tanjong Pelapas Port, minority stakes in Gamuda, IJN. The list is incomplete. He is like many an UMNOPutra a stake holder for some one. He is over-extended, since he could not possibly have the tens of billions he needs to finance them and does not tap capital markets, but continues his acquisitions with abandon and without care. MMC signed an agency agreement in Poland for Polish-made Russian tanks hours before Malaysia agreed to buy them. This former petty rice trader established his connexions with the then deputy international trade and ministry minister, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin. The latter went on to be mentri besar of Johore. And Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar became his alter ego in business. He came into the Prime Minister's orbit when he built, gratis, a mosque in Kedah. He claims connexions with Central Asia but he is, like most of Arab descent in Malaysia, from Yemen.

The New Straits Times on Tuesday (09 April 2002) had a curious front page headline - Kerpan reels from viral attack - of a disastrous integrated tiger prawn project in the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed's home state of Kedah. Read it, and you would not see anything to suggest its import. But it is the coup de grace to a grandoise but ill-thought plan to bring large scale fishery into the heart of Kedah agriculture. No one except the civil servants thought it would succeed. Like every grand scheme to forcefeed the development of Malaysia Inc.

Pulau Tioman, 50 kms off Pahang in the South China Sea, is made duty free, as Pulau Langkawi off Kedah, so tourism could remain Malaysia's second largest foreign exchange earner. All stops are pulled to attract more tourists. What better than make Pulau Tioman a duty-free island? Pahang and Kuala Lumpur announced great plans to make it attractive to tourists. With, no doubt, similar plans for other islands off Malaysia's coast -- Pulau Pangkor, off the Perak coast, for one.

The National Front (BN) is returned with a larger majority in the Indera Kayangan byelection. The stakes were too high for UMNO and MCA for it not to be otherwise. The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, nor the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, would be under greater pressure that they already are otherwise. So, it had to win. It did, with a larger majority. The MCA's Mrs Oui Ah Lan is returned with 900 more votes than in 1999. The BN is quick to claim the Parti Keadilan Negara (Keadilan) is discredited. How it does not explain, since if it had caused an upset, it would have been the BN that would have. All the byelection proved is that BN cannot lose in any byelection and ensure it would not. The Lunas byelection loss in Kedah sticks in its gullet.

The newspapers are full of news of splits within the opposition, but little on the issues in this byelection. It is important for BN to win at any cost. It has no other agenda or policy. The opposition saw it as another Lunas, which it is not. Keadilan snatched that Kedah state assembly seat from MIC because it banked on the divided Malay and Chinese vote. The same divide are in Indera Kayangan too. To take advantage of that Keadialn needed a Malay candidate. That would give it at least most of the Malay votes as did in Lunas. The split Chinese vote, despite the DAP's petulance, would give it the votes for a wafer-thin victory. In the MCA leadership split, those backing the MCA deputy president are strong in Perlis. When Keadilan decided on a Chinese candidate, it fell into a trap. In a choice between two Chinese candidates, the average Chinese voter in rural constituencies would opt for the government candidate. So, Keadilan faces two debts: the Chinese would not back it as it hopes, and the Malay, faced with the splits within, may decided to sit on the sidelines.

The Malay vote is therefore divided, and diffused. The Malay challenge in Umno-controlled states is a sign of that. With it comes a host of other problems. Mahathir believes, for instance, that Terengganu - now in PAS hands - could return to Umno rule in the next general elections but he is also worried about the prospect of his home state of Kedah voting PAS into power.

The MCA President sacks his vice-president and rival, Dato' Chua Jui Meng, as Kedah MCA chief for he reasons he himself did not know why. He told different versionsn to different newspapers, and when Dato' Chua rebutted his claims, questioning the timing when he had offered his resignation much earlier, he, as usual, dissembled, to hide behind the Prime Minister's shadow. Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed is not one who would desert an ally, however irrelevant he has cometo mean in his grand scheme of things, and quickly backed Dr Ling. The man had a right to do what he wants, and he did the right thing. But even he stopped at what Dr Ling's Talebans tell any who would listen: Dato' Chua be removed from the cabinet. No, said the de factor MCA president, he has no intention of reshuffling his cabinet. So, Dato' Chua would continue as health minister. Why he cannot have a cabinet reshuffle is his own insecurity, but that is another story.

He removes his vicepresident and bitter critic, Chua Jui Meng, firmly in the Ah Lek camp, as Kedah MCA chief. for an effect opposite to what he intends. He tells different versionsn to different people for the sacking: the New Straits Times today (04 October) says the Kedah MCA wanted it; but MCA Kedah is unhappy about it. The Sun quotes him that Chua tried to "kill" him; the Star, which he controls, says it shows Ling cannot be pushed around and now implicitly controls the MCA.

Keadilan's entry, into the Sabah legislative assembly, ineffectual as it is, would alter this equation yet again. If it wins, it repeats the stunning victory in Lunas, in Kedah. The cat-and-mouse game in Sarawak on when its Council Negri elections would be has to do with this, and UMNO's own desire for a presence in the state.

UMNO leaders could not order the disciplinary board's findings be carried out forthwith. If this move -- revolutionary in many ways since UMNO at last comes to terms with the dominant influence of money in its deliberations -- can cause so much distress and reduce UMNO leaders to talk gibberish, it shows not determination to root out an evil but to resolve the matter without offending anyone. One of the six is a state executive councillor and state assemblyman from Kedah. Dato' Zainol Md Isa refused to step down from either. The mentri besar did not see why he should be removed; after all he does good work, says his mentri besar, and what he is disciplined for does not affect the state. Another threatened to leave UMNO after he was suspended, with rumours swirling that he would join PAS. UMNO leaders went into rigor mortis. It is as if UMNO wanted a token decision, chose the six, and then told them they should not fight back, instead accept the punishment like men, and all would be well in the end.

So far so good. But the party leaders -- Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi et al -- cannot leave well enough alone. They had to warn UMNO of what is in store if members engaged in money politics; and went on to spoil their case to explain and make a fool of themselves, with no pretence of fairness or fair play, to end up, without intent, by questioning their motives. A Kedah state executive councillor and Baling division chief, Dato' Zainol Mohd Isa, is one. The mentri besar of Kedah, Dato' Seri Syed Razak Syed Zin, keeps him on in his executive council, insist he is a paragon of brilliance who has committed no wrong, and that he should not be sacked. Another, KFC Holdings (M) Bhd chairman and Muar division chief, Dato' Abdullah Omar, wants to resign from UMNO. He should not, says Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, whose son is married to Dato' Abdullah's daughter. Neither the UMNO president nor the deputy president should have even talked about it.

The UMNO disciplinary board found six guilty of money politics in the recent divisional elections, and suspeneded them from contesting party elections for a period, it should have shown seriously to halt an endemic problem. Instead, excuses are given why they should be allowed to continue as before. One of the six is a state executive councillor from Kedah. The mentri besar's immediate response is how valuable he is to the state, that his offences did not matter, and he would remain. Yesterday, an UMNO vice president, Tan Sri Muhyuddin Yassin, says Dato' Zainol Mohamed Isa need not be sacked from the executive council "as the state has the right to retain him".

The National Front and UMNO grasps at straws to return to lead the Malays. But it positions itself in Malay quicksand that nothing seems to turn out right. It alienates important groups in Malaysian society, worsening it with its frustrated anger. It looks upon its critics as it would an enemy. PAS cottons on with much effect: In Kedah recently a few hundred UMNO members publicly embraced PAS. The posters openly attacked the Prime Minister. The police stepped in to prevent it. And UMNO lost further ground.

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