The TNB scandal is so sharply focussed that no one involved leaves without mud on the face. It is not allowed to run professionally, its senior staff are chosen for political reliability and propensity to greed, rules and regulations are thrown aboard along with the senior technical staff who had spent a lifetime with TNB to short circuit the system. Without it, TNB cannot be laid to waste. As it now has. The man who directs operations from behind the scenes is the prime minister's son-in-law, Khairy Jamaludin, who appointed its chief executive officer, Che Khalil Mohamad Noh, and key officials.

But that meeting laid the ground work for the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, to insist the June UMNO supreme council agreed on a similar plan for Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib to be elected UMNO president and deputy president without contest. It has gone further. All state liaison committees are informed by UMNO headquarters that nominations for the two must be total; no one else must be nominated. The acclaimed UMNO unity is a myth. Pak Lah struggles to keep the party together. The warlords are on the rampage. Even Puteri UMNO now insists on contest for all positions, including the top two.

One way out would have the president and deputy president returned unopposed. The UMNO supreme council raised it, but with no discussion and no vote. It was left to die. In times past, this would have been taken as acceptance. Not now. The changing mood was ignored. The party secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, and the acting deputy president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, lied about it when they spoke to the press. The Malay character is not to challenge the leaders even if they are wrong. In Malay feudal practice, much in evidence in Malaysia, challenging the ruler is 'derhaka' - treachery - for which the penalty is death. But when Malay feudal practice is challenged, the lines are not as clear cut. As now.

Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is returned to office by too wide a margin, and he cannot revamp UMNO or the government as he would have liked. Besides, the opposition within has given notice the old practices on how leaders are selected must make way for new blood. But the UMNO gerontocracy would not allow it. The status quo will remain, where possible. The president and deputy president will be returned unopposed. It is an act of bravado, especially when the UMNO supreme council, the body which makes statements like these, did not call for it. Two gerontocrats, the party secretary-general and soon-to-be Yang Dipertua Negeri (governor) of Malacca, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, and the acting deputy president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, took it upon themselves to mislead the party and country.

THE MALAYSIAN DEPUTY PRIME minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, insisted last Tuesday, 25 May 2004, the UMNO supreme council had decided the previous night the party president and deputy president had been elected unopposed. One can understand why he made it. The National Front (BN) had had its best ever results in the March general elections, but in circumstances that suggest massive fraud to which the Election Commission actively bent the rules. It was to affirm Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as Prime Minister in his own right, and allow him to be his own man, not an appendage of his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. It did not. So a new plan is hatched to ensure he would be UMNO president come what may. The UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, read a statement he did not sign, though it was issued in his name. Dato' Seri Najib explained what it meant and why. The mainstream newspapers reported it parrot-like on the front pages in banner headlines. But the UMNO supreme council did not unanimously decide the UMNO president and deputy president be returned uncontested. In fact, it did not even discuss or raise it. Tan Sri Khalil and Dato' Seri Najib lied. Why?

THE UMNO SUPREME COUNCIL met on Monday (24 May 2004) and decided unanimously, so we are told the next day, that the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, are elected party president and deputy president respectively. Or as the UMNO secretary general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, put it: "The supreme council also agrees that acting president Abdullah is elected to the post of president without contest and the vice-preisdent carrying out the duties of deputy president, Najib, is elected to the post of deputy president without contest." All other posts for the supreme council will be decided in elections at the UMNO general assembly starting on 23 September. The obvious questions were not asked: How could the UMNO supreme council elect the party president and deputy president without falling foul of its own constitution and the Registrar of Societies? Why and how did it decide? Tan Sri Khalil's sepulchral announcement - as befits a man, if the widespread belief in UMNO can be believed - who would be soon the governor of Malacca, raises more questions than answers. He would not answer them. But someone must. It could not be left unexplained.

So where could he contest? This is where it turns murky. The BN selection committee, of which he is a member with the BN secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, and Pak Lah's son-in-law, Mr Ahmad Khairy bin Jamaluddin, decided he should contest the new Cameron Highlands constituency. But the People's Progressive Party (PPP) leader, Dato' M. Kayveas, worked hard to be given it, setting up an enviable organisation there. It is a safe seat. The Opposition does not have an organisation there, and any BN candidate would be returned with a handsome majority. At the BN meeting to iron out the seats, Pak Lah asked why Dato' Kayveas is not given Cameron Highlands. Tan Sri Khalil said the PPP leader could not be given the constituency since that he would lose. The meeting became acrimonious, and Dato' Kayveas threatened to pull the PPP out of BN. The Perak mentri besar, Dato' Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali, stepped in and offered the PPP the UMNO-held Bukit Gantang constituency, a 70 per cent Malay majority area with less than five per cent Indians.

The People's Progressive Party (PPP) stirs up a mini crisis when its president, Dato' M. Kayveas, claims the BN secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, offered him the new parliamentary constituency of Cameron Highlands. This is promptly denied. "I never promised anyone any seat," he said. The BN should be quaking in its boots by now: if the PPP did not get the Cameron Highlands seat, Dato' Kayveas warns, his party members would not campaign for whoever is chosen. Dato' Kayveas is an honorable man. He would not lie, but what he said is not the truth either. It was not Tan Sri Khalil who made the offer but the third member of the election committee who is possibly the most powerful man in the country after Pak Lah. The BN team offered the PPP one state constituency and two Senators. As Dato' Kayveas walked away, he was accosted by the third man who offered him Cameron Highlands. But the man cannot be named or compromised, so he prepares the ground to blame some one if he does not get it, and sideline him if he does.

Could he then confirm what other UMNO leaders say: that it intends to buy Opposition candidates after the nomination as a cheaper way to win seats? But I stray. In this matter, all he had to say was if Mr Lokman had, or had not, joined UMNO. But he could not. For it is an issue it can milk some two cents worth of publicity. The UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaacob is unsure. He must verify it. "Our pratice in UMNO has always been to hold welcoming ceremonies for members of other political parties who have sincerely decided to join us and these events are held from time to time," he said. And sidestepped the issue at hand. He rides the high horse: "Our leaders on the ground have indicated to me of interest by people from other political parties wishing to join UMNO, after having evaluated our policies and track record in serving the people."

The BN secretary-general, Tan Sri Mohamed Rahmat, has quit, after 35 years in Parliament. His place is taken by the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob. He has his hands full, is to retire soon. He was to have been the Governor of Malacca but that did not work out. But Pak Lah should have appointed some one younger and energetic. More important, he should have ensured the BN secretary-general to be a non-UMNO member. The Alliance secretary-general was always from the MCA. But that was not followed when the BN was established in 1973. If he could not appoint a Chinese, he could at least have appointed someone who could make BN at least active. There is another facet to Tan Sri Mohamed's retirement: It is a subtle hint to the MIC and Gerakan presidents, and others too long in the tooth in office to take the hint. Would they?

But this masks a larger problem: The MIC is irrelevant in the national picture as the PPP and IPF are. The UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakub, said yesterday (10 November) the Indian parties must united under the MIC, which he extols as an important vote gatherer for the BN, but little of what it has done for the community. In other words, the MIC is in the BN so it would be kept quiet and docile, allowing its leaders to enrich themselves at their members' expense, allowint it to fester in its small irrelevant pool of like-minded Indian political parties, all out to ensure what they can garner from being associated with the BN. It is not a happy picture. This irrelevant mudslinging in which the MIC comes out badly is what is wrong with the party. It addresses every slight against its leader as a major offensive, and ignores Indian issues and problems that needs urgent correction. All Dato' Samy Vellu has done in his 24 years in office is to show Malaysians how efficiently Malaysian Indians can mismanage affairs so thoroughly - the MIC's much touted and vaunted Maika Holdings Berhad is now a private company controlled by its president, but not after its Indian shareholders losts tens of millions; every MIC venture is a disasterf - that the government no longer gives the MIC first crack of projects and shares reserved for the Indian community.

This is why a secret meeting took place at the Awana Resort, midway to Genting Highlands, in the second week of September. All were curiously from the UMNO Team B, which was later to be Semangat '46. That it was held at all reveals Pak Lah's insecurities. He is fearful of a Najib bandwagon, and by this meeting revealed to be weaker than he is thought to be. One man at the meeting stood out like a sore thumb: Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. Why he was there is unclear, unless Pak Lah wanted his help to deflect Dato' Seri Najib. Pak Lah was there, of course. So were the former deputy prime minister and Pak Lah's mentor, Tan Sri Musa Hitam; Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, who if rumours be true, is the home minister under Pak Lah; Tengku Azlan ibni almarhum Sultan Abu Bakar, the brother of the Sultan of Pahang (there presumably to show the Palace is wary of Dato' Seri Najib); Pak Lah's financial and political advisor, Dato' Khalimullah Hassan, and a representative of the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob. After the day's discussion, Pak Lah and Tengku Razaleigh returned; the others stayed on to conspire and for golf.

Where is Senator Dato' Zainuddin Mydin, the former editor-in-chief of the Utusan group of newspapers, who so believes in press freedom that he orchestrated a physical attack on the offices of the Internet newspaper, malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com) because it believed in press freedom? Where is the minister of information, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, who should have led the charge against the Prime Minister's detractors even before the UMNO lemmings. Lemmings are rat-like creatures which once in while for reasons still unexplained they rush in hordes of hundreds of thousands in a mass suicide across the fields of Scandinavia into the cold waters of its seas. The three UMNO lemmings desperate seek a horde to commit suicide with. But the others have no such intent. With election less than six months away, this silence is unwarranted. Why are they then all silent?

THE UMNO SECRETARY-GENERAL, TAN Sri Khalil Yaakob, and the Sabah UMNO chief minister, Dato' Musa Aman, are in no doubt the opposition in the state would be annihilated in the coming state assembly polls. "The BN will achieve a 100 per cent victory in the next Sabah state election," they crowed at a press conference in Sandakan on 04 September 2003. Both clearly did not agree with their over-optimistic assessment and quickly downgraded their confident expectations: Dato' Musa would then speak only of "overwhelming success" and Tan Sri Khalil of his confidence in an opposition rout. In other words, neither believed in what they said. It was an attempt to rouse the BN supporters in Sabah from their fissiparous turf-defining quarrels to implausibly rally around to rout the opposition. So, the spin continues.

How did this come about? Last week, the Pahang mentri besar, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob, to divert attention from the casino mess he is in, said "people did not like their 'wakil rakyat' showing off their wealth". If they did, he warned, they would not be candidates in the general election. What about those who, like the second finance minister, Dato' Seri Jamaluddin Jarjis, put at risk the BN's electoral chances in the state by allowing virtual casino licences to the super crony, Tan Sri Vincent Tan? They do not flaunt their wealth, so how do they come within this new restriction for candidates? To continue, the Prime Minister said the UMNO constitution need not be amended, "this is only an administrative matter". The UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, any proposal like this must first be discussed by the party leaders. But if it is made, "it is a good thing".

This second casino licence puts every Pahang cabinet minister and senior UMNO politician in political difficulties. The defence minister and UMNO vice president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, is drowning in his Pekan parliamentary constituency with attacks from within UMNO and from PAS, and looks for another constituency in Pahang. The information minister and UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, would have been, but is not worried for he is slated, according to what he told friends, the next governor of Malacca. The mentri besar, Dato' Adnan Yaakob, denies he knows anything about it, but could a casino licence be issued in Pahang without his concurrence? UMNO in Pahang wants the Sultan's younger brother, Tengku Azlan ibni Sultan Abu Bakar, to move to Pekan and be the state's mentri besar after the elections. But that could be a non-starter if the casino affair turns into a full-fledged political problem and the PAS onslaught becomes too heavy for BN to bear.

Bukit Tinggi is in Pahang state, which also hosts Malaysia other casino at Genting Highlands. It is Tan Sri Vincent's third special deal with the state: the present information minister and UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yusoff, when mentri besar of Pahang, alienated the land to the Sultan of Pahang on the understood-condition that it would be sold immediately to Tan Sri Vincent. Another holiday resort of his, Pulau Tioman, was not paying its way. The government helpfully allowed him to run an airline to the island, which was also turned into a free trade zone, after Langkawi and Labuan. The Colmer Tropicale resort fulfilled a Prime Ministerial whimsy, but it could not, in a thousand years, pay its way as pseudo-French resort. The casino could. So he is given a licence. Even if it damns the National Front government of his patron, one Dr Mahathir Mohamed, as peopled by Islamic charlatans.

IT IS OFFICIAL. MALAYSIAN NEWSPAPERS and journalists could report freely and fearless of the war in Iraq. The government would neither censor their reports nor tell them how to report. But it would be helpful if they follow closely what it deems decent coverage. The Malaysian nation cannot afford to speak in discordant tones of a war far away. This, in the considered opinion of the information minister, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, is freedom of the press. And proves it by keeping quiet at the outburst of his deputy ministrer, Dato' Zainuddin Maidin aka Zam, when a
Malaysian analyst suggested, in a BBC interview, that one in three Malaysians he spoke to thought the US was right to attack Iraq. His job as minister of information is, to put it mildly, to disinform and misinform.

The first is the strongest of three weak options: that he could be a challenger for the UMNO presidency next year. He refuses to be drawn into it in the several long talks I have had with him in the past year. But he keeps his options open. So active is he that UMNO branches throughout the country are cautioned against inviting him to open their meetings. At an UMNO branch meeting in the Gombak area of Kuala Lumpur, the official guest, an UMNO worthy, did not turn. The Hermit was around and did the honours. The UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, who is also information minister, issued the order. All this reveals is that Pak Lah would have to fight his way to remain Prime Minister after October.

LAST WEEK, THE UMNO MANAGEMENT committee decided the General Assembly in June should be in October to give its President and Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, a fitting send off into retirement. The UMNO information chief, Tan Sri Megat Junid Ayob, announced it. On Sunday (16 Feb), the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, said it would be discussed in the Supreme Council at its next meeting. On Monday, Dr Mahathir would not hear of it, said it be in June. Since the UMNO management committee is senior party officials chaired by the deputy president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on first glance it would reveal a deep split in UMNO between King and Dauphin. So it was believed. Dr Mahathir has bluntly told Pak Lah he still calls the shots. He should have been consulted of any change. And other fanciful versions suggest an ascerbic confrontation.

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