The area was known by the Greeks more than 2,000 years ago as the Golden Chersonese. The Indians called it 'Swarna Bhumi', a rough translation of the Greek word, or is it the other way around?. The region was part of Bharat Varsh (India then). In the Indian classic, Panchatantra, there is a tale of a Brahman preparing to leave for Swarna Bhumi to look for his missing son. It is possible that Indians of those days have kept their culture to this day. Kedah, the state in north Peninsular Malaysia, is from 'kedaram', the Tamil (or Sanskrit) word for scepture. Sanskrit became the court language, and is very important foreign language in the Malay language. Once, Malaya sought the Sanskrit equivalent first and then the other languages when a Malay word cannot be found. Now Arabic has that pride of place.

The National Front, led by UMNO, has taken Islam as its political platform, mainly to beat PAS at its own game. It has dispensed with multiracialism in this move. It is its version of Islam that matters. The MCA, MIC, its allies in Sarawak and Sabah have accepted it, usually because their leaders want to stay in power. But it kept quiet about Islam Hadhari when it met PAS in byelections in Kelantan last year. It is schizophrenic about Islam, and that would be disastrous in a country which has accepted UMNO as its political party. Since most Malay have more than 90 per in Malaysia are Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and Perlis, this is a disastrous development. The only two political parties here are UMNO and PAS; the others don't couint because they are united in hate. Any attempt by them to win elections to form state governments is unsuccessful. What happened to the DAP in Penang is not the National Front's effectiveness but in the voter's feeling that it should be in the opposition.

WHAT HAPPENED ON MAY 13 – whether it is the Malays who orchestrated it or the DAP which started it – misses one important fact. It was to get Tengku Abdul Rahman, the first prime minister, out of office. The deaths in the riots do not matter, only that the man must go. The MCA felt that the Chinese had let it down, and quit the government. It played into UMNO hands. The racial riots happened because UMNO wanted the Malays to look upon it as the only leader they will have. The Tengku was reduced to negotiating his departure so that he would be prime minister for a day under the new Yang Dipertuan Agung, his nephew the Sultan of Kedah. UMNO succeeded in their political aim in the last 35 years, but at what cost. UMNO the nationalist movement had made way for UMNO the political party in 1987. The Tengku did not join the political party, and died, with Tun Hussein Onn, out of the political party. In fact. the only ex-president of the political party is Tun Mahahir Mohamed. In 1969, the Tengku's namesis was Tun Mahathir, who plotted against him.

He told the paper he was on his way back from Kedah when the spa was raided. It could be true, as his other mea culpa in the article, but it came too late. That is new. There are so many versions on where he was, after rumours spread that he was involved. He allowed these rumours to spread. He should have come out then and cleared the air. Instead, government ministers, who normally tell lies, said he was not there. Others who should have known, as it became clear from the article, kept quiet. But the profile about him, laudatory as all profile of UMNO figures are, revealed more questions about him. What was not mentioned will now be spread as rumours throughout the country. He comes from Kampung Medan, outside of Kuala Lumpur. He has risen to be head of Putera UMNO because of his UMNO connections. But his career is finished before it started in the centre.

The rebels against British rule in Malaya came from the titled: Dato' Bahaman, Mat Kilau, Maharaja Lela, Dato' Sagor were on the royal court. They failed because they could not get the people on their side in fighting the British, who hanged most of them. Our officials did not bother until Mat Kilau was found to be alive. There were intense discussions in the 20th century whether he ought to be given a dato'ship. I knew his son-in-law and daughter, and have stayed with them when I was in the capital he was Malaysian ambassador. He later became an official at the Organisation of Islamic Conference when Tengku Abul Rahman, Malaysia's first prime minister, was secretary- general. But until Mat Kilau was found alive, the Malaysian people, if ever, did not know the connection. Both are dead now, his widow died in a car crash. The people will not move unless led. UMNO was founded in the Istana in Johore Bahru, Dato' Sir Onn bin Jaffar its founding president, was a cousin of the sultan, and mentri besar of Johore. (His mother's sister, both Circassions from Turkey, was the wife of Sultan Abubakar, grandfather of the present Sultan.) Many of the earlier leaders of UMNO were from the palace. It is only the last two presidents, Tun Mahathir Mohamed and Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, were not from the aristocratic class, although Tun Mahathir's mother was from the Kedah royal court.

The Malaysian foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, has called on Thailand to win over its Muslims. He meant the Malay provinces of southern Thailand, which has remained provinces of Thailand for over a century, as Kelatantan and Trengannu was until 1942 and during the war years part of Japanese empire. It was only after the war that it became part of Malaya. On the west coast, Kedah and Parlis was under Thai suzerainty until it was separated from Thailand in the early 20th century. Tengku Abdul Rahman Putra, born of the Kedah royal family and this nation's first prime minister, was educated in Thailand and his mother was Thai. But Malaysia was after independence in 1957 have blamed the British for allowing the southern Thai Malay provinces to be under the control of Thailand. In 1976, when Thailand abrogated the rule whereby the Malaysians could operate in southern Thailand to prevent the Malayan Communist Party from using the area as a safe haven and Malaysian troops prevented them from coming the border.

There were numerous Malay kingdoms in the 2nd and 3rd century A.D., as many as 30 according to Chinese sources. Kedah – Kedaram or Kataha, in ancient Pallavi or Sanskrit script – was in the direct route of invasions of Indian traders and kings. Rajendra Chola, who is now thought to have laid Kota Gelanggi to waste, put Kedah to heel in 1025 but his successor, Vir Rajendra Chola, had to put down a Kedah rebellion to overthrow the invaders.

A CALLOUS MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT lost its nerve, cordoned off where the tsunami struck in Penang, Langkawi, Kedah on Boxing Day, prevented aid reaching the area, and prided in its incompetence and arrogance. The immediate reaction were of rats scuppering off a sinking ship. No one took responsibility, nor allow anyone else to. Government agencies and departments which should have rushed in automatically did not since they were not ordered to.

The 2004 General Elections should have been no different. The BN would have won with its two-thirds and more majority. The Opposition would have held its ground, or even lose some of it. But the BN realised the old practices cannot work. The Pendang parliamentary and Anak Bukit state assembly byelections in Kedah - it won one, lost the other - two years ago hinted at the dangers ahead: the BN could not depend on the Malay ground, disenchanted with it since Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim was sacked, jailed, humiliated and beaten to a pulp in defiance of Malay cultural rules, and that divide forced it to a new alignment with the Chinese and the bumiputras of Sarawak and Sabah. It was equally important for PAS to be sidelined. In Parliament, it showed up a BN front bench as the Malaysian Keystone Cops, bumbling and bungling its way from one relentless parliamentary question to another, unable to debate the issues, frightened when PAS leaders stand up to speak, unwilling to stand up, running away from the chamber when the issues got an uncomfortably close airing. So it enhanced the advantage it had with the new electoral boundaries with a little skullduggery of its own.

The BN today realised the mess it is in and quickly moved to distance itself from the EC's dereliction of duty. The BN deputy president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, blames the EC for the mess-up in the ballot paper in the Sungei Lembing state seat in Pahang where the PAS candidate is depicted as from KeADILan. The Gerakan president, Dato' Seri Lim Kheng Yaik, is furious at the missing names of voters, and now fears for his seat as a result. The government-owned radio and television networks all but blamed the EC for the confusion and anger at the incomplete electoral list, especially in areas where the Opposition PAS and KeADILan is particularly strong. This cannot be confirmed but the polls in Selangor was extended when it became clear when polls closed at 1700, that BN had not lost its two-thirds majority in Selangor but had probably lost the state too. What does seem clear is that even with the extended voting hours it has lost its two-thirds majority. It is a bigger blow to BN than losing Kedah and Perlis. As it stands the BN would well hold on to the two northern states.

The BN decided to dislodge PAS in Kelantan and Trengannu and prevent it from taking power in Perlis and Kedah. As it went deeper into it, it found Kelantan and Trengganu all but impregnable, and its defences in the other two northern states shot to pieces. The does not mean PAS could romp home here, but it would have a greater presence in the two state assemblies that it thought possible. Pak Lah and the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, concentrated their fire on PAS in the four states, and ignored the other vulnerable states. One UMNO insider said that Pahang and Selangor also faces a PAS barrage; could Pak Lah hold his ground if Perlis and Kedah is retained but lose the BN's two-thirds majority in Pahang and Selangor? The traditional view is accepted: that the states from Selangor to Johore is firmly in its hands, but that it is not made the BN panic. But it cannot get its election machinery to work overtime to correct this, as once it could. The only ones interested in the election is the mainstream media and the Election Commission, each making and reporting statements as unrelated to reality as could be. One must look hard to see signs of an election, for the city and its environs show no signs of it. Where the candidates are locked in battle, especially in the Malay ground, there is more interest than is normal. But a visitor from overseas would be surprised to be told Malaysia was amidst an election campaign.

Pak Lah needs to romp home, if possible, with 80 per cent of Parliament and a two-thirds majority in the state assemblies, to be returned as UMNO president in his own right in June. He took a calculated risk to prune the BN list drastically, but it was done in self-interest, and it backfired. He did it so stupidly that those dropped learnt of it from from the newspapers or radio or television after the fact. He changed candidates at random, causing the divisions to close its election centres, in some cases, burning them down, or offering its services to the Opposition. In many a constituency, the BN election machinery is but shut down, and Pak Lah can do nothing about it. He and his deputy, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, rush from one area to the next as internal sabotabe threatens its optimistic expectations. The danger for Pak Lah is the Malay belt - Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu - and Pahang and Selangor. He could not turn PAS out of the two state governments under its control, Kelantan and Trengganu, but PAS could deny BN its two-third majority in the other states. If he cannot make headway in the Malay states, even a two-thirds majority would not help him politically. The internal squabbles in Johore, Sarawak and Sabah puts even a sweep of these states, which he depended on for his two-thirds majority, not so easy as he thought. The biggest threat to BN candidates in several constituencies is not the Opposition but the BN itself.

The prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has another difficulty: he must appear at the UMNO general assembly in June with the Malay ground on his side. But he came into office too late in the day to address that before the elections. The battle is fought in Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu, Pahang and Selangor. His main opponent is PAS now and the National Justice Party (KeADILan) possibly in the coming years. PAS only has to show it has gained ground in these states by denying the BN its two-thirds majority, as in Kedah. If it can achieve that, and be returned in 50 per cent more seats in Parliament and the states, it has achieved what it wants for this general election. A problem for the BN, more narrowly, UMNO, is that PAS and KeADILan work hand-in-hand in this general election. In 1999, the BN strategy was to deny every KeADILan candidate but its president, Datin Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, a seat. KeADILan had five seats in the last parliament.

UMNO's focus is on Kedah, Perlis, Pahang and Selangor, where PAS has made deep inroads. PAS could not cause upsets in Pahang and Selangor, except in a few constituencies, but it could in Kedah and Perlis, where BN must fighter the harder to retain control. This worries UMNO no end. But long years of neglect, and overbearing state leaders, who behave as Dato' Seri Samy Vellu in fine form, must in the end cost it heavily. PAS believes in softening up the ground, gradually over the years until the state falls into its lap without effort. It worked to a 30-year, or generational, schedule. It got side-tracked in 1959, when it formed the state governments in Kelantan and Trengganu. It lost control of Trengganu two years later. It forgot its scedule, and could not make headwy. What brought it to its senses is its ill-fated years in BN; when that soured and led to its dismissal from Kelantan in 1978, it rethought its strategy and restarted its 30-year schedule. That works to plan. It has Kelantan and Trengganu under its belt, it believes it add the four northern Malay states, and a few others in the general election after 2004.

Which is why I do believe that, as matters stand, the Opposition can barely dent the BN's two-third majority. Where it can cause an upset is if it captures one more state. Kedah is widely tipped. But that would be a fluke. It is touch and go, but in such instances, and unless there is an ingrained hostility to the BN government, it may not happen. What PAS did in 1999 was to make solid BN constituencies into marginal ones. And it hopes, this time around, it could force the BN out. It could, but then it may not. It has denied the BN its two-thirds majority in Kedah. This time around, even if it does not take the state, there would be little change. That process could be seen in Pahang and Selangor.

The Opposition had expected the disssolution, although the Election Commission, after its chairman said in an interview that a candidate would be barred from the polls only if his conviction has not completed its appeal process, barred three Opposition leaders, who were convicted but had expected to contest, pending their appeals. It has a tough fight ahead, for the main party, Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), could not get an Opposition coalition to challenge BN; the DAP stayed out. This infighting could cost it seats. It has set its eyes on Kedah, but the best it can hope, barring a miracle, is to shake up the UMNO-held constituencies this time, and capture the state in 2009. For this election, the DAP has agreed to come to an informal coalition, but this could be too little too late. But this election would see a battle royale for control of the Malay constituencies between UMNO and PAS.

The BN had planned this general election since September, thwarted each time by calculated leaks or internal crisis. Since Pak Lah took office in November, at least two dates were seriously discussed, in December and January before the March date is all but firmed. He needs this election to appear before the UMNO general assembly in June with a firm national mandate. It is election year in UMNO too, and his showing at the polls would determine if he would be challenged. The rush to elections now is forced upon him. The Sabah assembly's five year term ends in April. The fractious state of Sabah BN and UMNO prevented early polls there. There were plans for the election there first, so that Pak Lah could come to general elections with one state firmly in its hands. But that had to be discounted when PAS, which controls Kelantan and Trengganu, suggested it would too. The BN is under pressure in Kedah, it remains touch and go there, but the odds of being returned in high. If Kedah goes, the BN would face far more problems elsewhere than it could handle.

He faces two important pressures: that PAS could seize Kedah; and the need, for his own survival, to offset it with the return to BN of either or both PAS-run Kelantan and Trengganu. The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, has rushed down to Kedah, and is terribly impressed with the reception, which he argues is a good sign that the state will remain firmly in BN hands. Crowds of 5,000 followed him wherever he went. There are two reasons for that: the BN's well-tested rent-a-crowd policy is augmented by a PAS organisation which has asked its supporters to welcome federal leaders with large crowds. Pak Lah came to similar conclusions in Kelantan and Trengganu. A prime minister cannot address crowds of 5,000 in hostile territory, so, depending on whether you believe the New Straits Times or the Singapore Straits Times, 50,000 or 30,000 attended. Curiously, for crowds of this size the newspapers would have at least had photographs of the crowds. There was none of that. Suffice it is to say that there was a large crowd. But it taken as read in a political society where support is measured in how many attend, that BN-controlled newspapers often drop a zero from the estimated crowd at an opposition function and add a zero for BN rallies and functions.

But all this is cold comfort for the Opposition. An enemy, political or otherwise, is at his most destructive when he has nothing to hope for. We see signs of that in present day Malaysia. The BN, rotten to the core, is still a formidable opponent. It still has aces up its sleeve. What unnerves it is the progressive alienation of the Malay heartland. PAS, for instance, concentrates its guns on Kedah and, to a lesser extent, Perlis, has made inroads in the two states; if the Gods smile their way, they could win either or both. But it is an uphill battle nevertheless. Indeed, Kedah is its better bet, but it is not certain it could succeed. What gives it the confidence is that the BN machinery is as weak to be non-existent. But for the voter to throw out the incumbent government and even the sitting representatives requires a mind shift many are prepared not even to think about it. I do not see this mind shift except at a narrow local level, and in pockets. The BN is well aware of this. This is why it is as equally confident. There would be upsets, of course, but that it can live with. The best the Opposition can hope for in this round is to build the ground for an onslaught in the general election after this. Any other result would indicate the ground is angrier than it is given credit for. And should be counted a success.

THE NATIONAL FRONT (BN) GOVERNMENT is furious that Friday sermons at some mosques throughout the country have a decidedly "political" - by its definition, anti-government - tinge. The only Islam it accepts is what it stands for, however vague or unacceptable it is to the Muslims in the community. Shamsul Akmar, in his political column in the New Straits Times, talks about it this morning (09 February 2004) but he narrows its focus to an irrelevant happenstance: that some mosque sermons equated the horrific rape and murder of a young girl as God's punishment for an UMNO official. The BN, and its predecessor Alliance, government, on the other hand, took it as a political decision since independence to control the mosques politically. But it took this position whilst ignoring how Islam developed in Malaya. There were three strands: in the Federated Malay States of Perak, Selangor, Pahang and Negri Sembilan; the Unfederated Malay States of Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu and Johore; the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca. Islam and the mosques developed differently in the three areas, with the added confusion that the five UMS states moved at their individual pace. In the FMS and in the Straits Settlements, the Religious Affairs Department had total control of the mosques in the state, directly or indirectly.

Pak Lah (1364)   United States (636)   Straits Times (412)   Samy Vellu (224)   Putra Jaya (200)   Chief Justice (200)   Saddam Hussein (188)   Vincent Tan (164)   Civil Service (154)   Parti KeADILan (148)   Islamic State (118)   Johore Bahru (100)   Sungei Buloh (94)   Bukit Tinggi (88)   Abdul Razak (80)   Pengkalen Pasir (68)   Ting Pek (64)   Armed Forces (59)   Soviet Union (58)

Malay Dominance (58)   Yong Teck (56)   Hong Kong (56)   Human Rights (56)   Syed Hamid (54)   Puteri UMNO (52)   Islam Hadhari (52)   Royal Commission (51)   Hussein Onn (51)   Rafidah Aziz (48)   Indian Congress (48)   Open House (44)   Vision Schools (44)   Shah Alam (44)   Malay Unity (42)   Chua Jui (42)   Abdul Taib (42)   Ampang Jaya (36)   Ras Adiba (36)

Osama Bin Laden (36)   Nik Aziz Nik (20)   Ling Liong Sik (18)   Lee Kuan Yew (18)

High Court Judge (14)   Wan Azizah Wan (9)   Lim Kit Siang (9)   Megat Junid Megat (8)

Mahathir (2960)

Anwar (2399)