The best known blogger among politicians is DAP veteran leader Lim Kit Siang, who is also leader of the Opposition in Parliament. DAP MP for Seputeh Teresa Kok has become better known for her blog after she brought to Parliament a video recording which showed the police to be lying, and the government to be backing them.

Mr Lee was brash then. He saw the PAP as the premier Chinese party in Malaysia and Singapore, which of course the Tunku did not agree. Mr Lee was emboldened by the 1964 general elections, when crowds from what is now Suleiman Court to the area surrounding Selangor Club turned up to hear him although PAP was returned in only one constituency, Bangsar. But there was the implied understanding that the PAP would remain in Singapore. The PAP broke that. It was downhill after that, which culminated in Singapore's expulsion two years later. Mr Lee's message was not acceptable to UMNO at that time, nor is it now though it is much modified, and the assistant minister for information, Syed Jaafar Albar, the father of the Malaysian foreign minister and who did not want Singapore out although he resisted Singapore in Malaysia. On Singapore's independence, the PAP became the DAP and Mr Lim Kit Siang, Mr Devan Nair's assistant at that time, tool over. Mr Nair returned to Singapore in the 1969 general elections. Mr Lee did not want Singapore ejected from Malaysia, but when that was inevitable, he brought Singapore to what it is today: an efficient island republic but its people are brash, arrogant. But this will last only so long as it gets its water from Johore. I happen to think Singapore will have to merge with Malaysia eventually, but as an adjunct of Johore. Patrick Keith's book is correct from his perspective as a senior information official of the Malaysian foreign ministry, but he wrote it from an official point of view. He knew the Tunku well, but he did not know what transpired behind his back. But it is important for an official point of view that contradicts the official history. There are other official accounts waiting to be written from the perspective of officials.

PARLIAMENT HAS BECOME A charade. The MPs from the ruling National Front are not given a free vote in the Rafidah Aziz affair. The two NF MPs who voted with the Opposition in referring Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz to the Committee of Privileges comes up for mention in newspaper reports and in Paliament as if they had done something terrible. It now seems the National Front never had any intention to put Rafidah Aziz through the hoop. She knows it, and almost every NF MP knows it. The result was predictable, although Parliament was allegedly given a free hand by the NF. The NF's majority in Parliament would see, as it turned out, that Datin Seri Rafidah would get into no trouble. And indeed she did not. She is in the New Straits Times today (6 October 2005) talking about her role in nation building, and that she viewed her international role more important than turning up in Parliament. Parliament is not important, she avers in the interview with New Straits Times. The leader of the Opposition, Mr Lim Kit Siang, is irrelevant, so his questions are less important than the Cabinet's. But in the Parliamentary system of government in force, it is more important than the cabinet. Tun Mahathir used to have cabinet meetings in Parliament. He at least paid lip service to the primacy of Parliament. The Natioanl Front does not. There is pressure on the National Front to penalise the two MPs who voted with the Opposition. And there is a collective sigh of relief that she is scot free. That was only possible by the massive majority the NF has in Parliament.

The DAP faces a similar crisis of leadership. It is not admitted, but it is there. This inhibits new members from joining the party. Many feel it is in the grip of the old timers led by its chairman, Mr Lim Kit Siang. Within the Chinese community, the DAP is used as its foil to raise issues the BN Chinese parties would not. But it is not the DAP it wants in Parliament and the state assemblies, but individuals. In other words, the DAP is seen as a gadfly by the Chinese community to keep the government in check. Should it ever be in the government, this community would desert is as quickly. That is the DAP dilemma.

The advertisement carried the BN logo, which it could not if was not an official advertisement. It was to show that Pak Lah would act against corruption to the point of biting the hand of his predecessor and mentor. It became an issue when the Opposition leader, Mr Lim Kit Siang, raised it in parliament in the debate on the royal address, which had claimed that corruption was not prevalent. The minister in charge of Parliament, a new post that makes him the court jester in the Pak Lah cabinet, Dato' Seri Nazri Aziz, said 'anonymous sources' placed it, and refused to investigate. The Election Commission must act since 'anonymous sources' hijacked a party logo, but it would not budge unless the advertisement had praised the Opposition instead. As the BN's lapdog, it knows when and how to bark.

The test of Malaysia's independent judiciary now rests on how it deals with the political framing of the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. It does not yet pass muster. Similarly, the test of Malaysia's ISA will rest on how the police deals with those accused of breaching national security but with close links to those in power. When the powers that be want some one damned, the ISA is invoked to make that easy. The Anwar Ibrahim case is only the most prominent of that. But its test will come when it acts against someone in the eye of power, like the son of the Prime Minister. The Tahir case reveals it is not. It is time, as the Opposition Leader, Mr Lim Kit Siang, suggests, to rethink the ISA, and amend it for the purpose it should be on the law books, and not to rein in the government's opponents. But that, as many good suggestions from him, is for the government, water off the duck's back.

So, it did not surprise when he called on the Royal Commission on the Police Force to start putting its "ideas" into action immediately. Good suggestions should be accepted, and implemented, if they can be without amending laws. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Lim Kit Siang, accepts it with alacrity. How did this come about? The Royal Commission chairman, Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah, suggested it when he met the IGP, Dato' Seri Mohamed Bakri Omar, and other senior police officers, and relayed what they had received. This seems to be out of line. The Royal Commission is not at liberty to talk about its hearings before it presents its report to the Yang Dipertuan Agung. Pak Lah, by suggesting it, is out of line. Whatever comes out should be in the report when it is submitted and published. The conditions of the Commission would have been clearly spelt out; there is no provision for its findings to be enforced in stages. Besides, must the Royal Commission share its preliminary findings with the police in the course of its investigations? What the Commission unearths is nothing new. The police know of it. Why cannot it do so on its own bat, and no demean the Royal Commission needlessly.

From now on, all general elections would depend not on principle and policy but the ease with which it can convince the voter to vote for it by damning its opponents with horrifying images that would stick in the mind, in other words demonise the opponents so that no matter what it does, it is damned. The BN tried this with particular impact in 1990 when a few days before polling it released a photograph of the then Semangat '46 leader, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, in a Kadazan head dress that had as a design that looked like a cross. It was used to destroy him in the Malay heartland, and from which he never recovered. He had to cave in and rejoin UMNO, where he remains in the wilderness to this day. This time the campaign was slicker, and again into full pressure in the last few days of the campaign. The Opposition could not rebut in time, especially with the mass media subborned to be the BN's publicity machine. It insisted on playing by the rules, and found itself stymied at every turn. In the election, the BN targetted both PAS and the National Justice Party (KeADILan), one the party it wants to best, the other it must destroy to prevent those Malays unwilling to be part of this move to a theocratic state to have a political voice. It did not target the nominally multiracial but Chinese-based Democratic Action Party (DAP), for it found it is easier to deal with a Chinese-based party like the DAP than tangle with PAS or KeADILan in parliament. The BN depended on the Chinese to deliver the votes, since it could not depend on the Malays who continue to stay on the sidelines. In this bargain, it had to allow the DAP to be the opposition. I am not sure if Tun Mahathir Mohamed's campaign in Ipoh Timor against the DAP chairman, Mr Lim Kit Siang, was not deliberate: it was a lightning rod for all wavering Chinese to rush to Mr Lim's aid. And so it turned out.

WHEN THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, filed his nomination papers in his Kepala Batas parliamentary constituency, his PAS opponent, Mr Abdul Khalid Rasid, raised a preliminary objection: Pak Lah did not file his election statement of accounts, as the law requires, after the 1999 general election. Pak Lah insisted he had, but when challenged, could not produce it. The returning officer, who would gladly had disqualified the candidate if the situation was reversed, decided discretion was the better of valour. His future was at stake. He passed the buck. He said at first only the Election Commission could, then decided he would, and rejected the objection. How could the Prime Minister be disqualified? He would not make such a stupid mistake, would he? The DAP leader, Mr Lim Kit Siang, could, which is why he was charged for a similar election offence years ago. But the Prime Minister? Certainly not! In 1999, the then Prime Minister, the now Tun Mahathir Mohamed, found at the last minute that his nomination papers were wrongly entered and could have been disqualified. But it was found out in time. He sacked a political secretary for this gaffe.

Still the subtle changes are missed. This frequent threats of general election caused one effect, to the BN's chagrin: in January, the Opposition parties decided polls were near, and started preparations for it to be held any time by June. The Barisan Alternatif (BA) does not have DAP as a member, but it discusses seats with KeADILan. I fear the DAP has missed the boat. It is reduced to a minor party, and while it could hope for what it now has and a few more, its heydays are over. That it wants to field both Mr Lim Kit Siang and Mr Karpal Singh in Penang - although there are attempts to have Mr Lim stand in one of two Ipoh parliamentary constituencies - is one sign of its genteel decline. The BN parties know the folly of not allowing for change from within, with regular retirements and new blood to keep it at the forefront. The DAP is now learning it the hard way.

He had nothing but contempt for the Opposition leaders, but he reserved his venom for the DAP's Lim Kit Siang, PAS's spiritual adviser Dato' Nik Aziz Nik Mat and PAS information chief, Dato' Harun Din. His attacks on the two were nothing new, but is wrong on Dato' Harun. He calls him a 'coward' who said he would run against him in 1999 but pulled out at the last minute. Why did he do so? He had guaranteed a loan from a Malaysian bank for a friend who reneged on it. Whenever he said he would stand in the polls, he was threatened with bankruptcy if he went ahead. That albatross is no more around his neck: the debt is paid, and he would, I understand, stand in Dr Mahathir's Kubang Pasu. He thinks he is a cheat and a fraud. Then, pray, why did he ask for his help to drive the devils and jinns that surround his official residence in Putra Jaya? Dr Harun, I understand, declined to for no reason than that it should have been done before the forest, where they resided, was cut down. It is a fact Dr Mahathir had not had a good night's sleep in his official residence. This is why he opts for a private residence in Sungei Besi.

NEPOTISM IS ALIVE AND well in Malaysia. As elsewhere in the world. When Rupert Murdoch considers who should oversee his vast business empire after him, the products of his loins get a head start. So when the Genting Highlands chieftain retires at 85. It is common in the business and financial world. In politics and in the civil service, it is frowned upon but it exists after a fashion. When one has the power to do it, why should one demur? The dynastic succession is now a political ideal as a monarchy or a commercial fact of life. Often this nepotic evidence is indirect, allowing the children of the leader to make hay while daddy (or as is as common, mummy) governs or rules. In several Asian countries, sons succeed fathers. Competence is implicit in several, but not all, of them. In Singapore, its long time Prime Minister and now senior minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, has sons and their wives in important cogs in the republic's wheel; one, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, will be prime minister before this year is out. In North Korea, Kim Chong Il succeed to the presidency when his father, Mr Kim Il Sung died in 1994. In Malaysia it varies. Two cabinet ministers owe their position to their late fathers: the second prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, and the third, Tun Hussein Onn and their sons, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak and Dato' Hishamuddin Tun Hussein sit in the cabinet. The DAP leader, Mr Lim Kit Siang, grooms his son, Mr Lim Guan Eng, to succeed him. It is considered a "right" to allow the children to make hay while their fathers shine.

When that great figure who now honours the Tengku now for his belief in racial harmony and his struggle to maintain it remembered the 27th death anniversary of the Tengku's successor but not the centenary of the Tengku himself, and reminded of it only when the DAP chairman, Mr Lim Kit Siang, mentioned it, it is proof yet of how this instant attempt at praising the Tengku, often by the same people who never dropped their guard to destroy him, leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It would get more bitter when the economy turns around, and the national heritage stadia would be considered ideal candidates for the wrecking machines. It would happen in our life time, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi three months younger than I, and time yet for him to eat his words, and for me to accept the inevitable.

A CENTENARY IS CELEBRATED come this Saturday, 8 February 2003, but few Malaysians, most shockingly in UMNO, would know what it was. I asked a range of people, in parliament, in the cabinet, in UMNO, in MCA, in the opposition, in the arts, in education, in the civil service, in business, if that date meant anything to them. But for a handful, I drew a blank. Until the DAP chairman, Mr Lim Kit Siang, asked last month why no one is bothered about the centenary of the birth of Independent Malaysia's greatest son, Tengku Abdul Rahman Putra al-haj, few were even aware of it.

This BN-induced general lassitude on Malaysia now threatens to destroy it. Every institution of any relevance in Malaysia is devalued to a degree unimagineable only two decades ago. To bring it back to what it was is as tedious as to let it slide into irrelevance and oblivion. The MTUC likewise has given up the ghost, and rush headlong into irrelevance and disaster. Elections are held so leaders can be freely elected. In Malaysia, it is so the leaders can be returned unopposed. Leaders go to any length to ensure they would not have to be tested. Hardly a party leader in BN or, for that matter, the opposition, is challenged, or elected in a free election. Several have been in office for 20 years and more. The DAP's Lim Kit Siang has been in office since 1969. A decade behind is the Malaysian Indian Congress's Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu. The other political leaders come after them. But all had been elected unopposed. It is not a good advertisement for democracy in Malaysian electable institutions.

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