The UMNO acting deputy president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, who was midwife to the defections, realised he had made a mistake, and told his staff the dozen are "useless" and of "no worth to UMNO". The other 58 were non-entities even in KeADILan and helped only to add to the numbers. Several in fact had resigned from the party or had not renewed their membership and technically were not KeADILan members. So that fell flat. UMNO needs a high profile defector. The New Straits Times yesterday (28 February 2004, p7) reported the KeADILan vice-president and Kedah state assemblyman for Lunas, Mr Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, could well defect to UMNO. This is why he had met the Prime Minister and UMNO president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Sources told the NST he had "declared to Abdullah that he was ready to jump ship", that he is "said to be disillusioned" with the Opposition.

WHEN IN ALOR STAR A FEW DAYS ago, the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, told reporters PAS could not yet defeat the National Front (BN) in Kedah. PAS wants to, he said, but the BN would not let it. The BN, and its predecessor, the Alliance, has governed Kedah since the first elections in 1955. But he jumped into a local BN and PAS fisticuff in which one says the other cannot defeat it, the other that it can, with PAS insisting that it has the "best" chance now to wrest Kedah, and the BN that that had "fizzled out". In the 1999 general election, PAS won a third of the 36 states, which it increased by one when it was returned to the Anak Bukit state seat in a byelection last year. Earlier, the BN had lost its two-thirds majority when the Lunas state was lost to Parti KeADILan Nasional (KeADILan) in a byelection. For the first time, the BN does not now have a two-thirds majority, a pyschological disaster from which it has yet to recover. The BN believes it is not comfortable with governance if it does not have a two-thirds majority.

Nothing grows under a banyan tree. Dr Mahathir is so dominant in Malaysian politics that he creates a vaccuum in UMNO's, and the country's, leadership. UMNO leaders dare not venture into their constituencies, nor meet their constituences except in controlled situations where it would be impolite ("kurang ajar") to raise one's grievances. The UMNO is in such bad shape in the bondooks that it needs little for UMNO headquarters to go into rigor mortis. As after the Lunas, Pendang and Anak Bukit byelections in Dr Mahathir's home state of Kedah. The SMS service will not reverse this, as the UMNO website did not. It must take harsh and hard decisions it cannot. The hardest is what to do with Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the jailed former deputy prime minister. Without resolving it, UMNO would be marginal in the Malay cultural world. His declining health worries the thinking and worried UMNO leaders and members no end. But neither Dr Mahathir nor his putative successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, would budge from keeping him in Sungei Buloh until he has served his full sentence. The mistake they make is to look at him as a convict when the Malay ground regard him as a political leader wronged.

During the Lunas byelection two years ago, an unkown police officer telephoned a Keadilan leader the registration numbers of 17 buses coming to vote, as phantom voters. Thirteen were stopped as they entered Lunas and diverted to the police station. The four had arrived early to escape detection. All admitted they were there to vote. Sometimes fate works in strange ways. A police officer was transferred as OCPD for the Lunas area because he was said to be 'soft' on the reformasi crowds in Kuala Lumpur. It was he who dealth with these voters. And he acted firmly. He is now in 'cold storage' at Police Headquarters. These fissures are now the norm than the exception. UMNO believes attack is the best form of defence, and accuses the opposition parties for the election shenanigans. But few, even in UMNO, believe it. BN and UMNO plugs the holes on the leaking ship as it appears. There are too many to plug, and, as the ship sinks, convince themselves the opposition and the people, not its own arrogance and rising irrelevance, put them in this predicament, and they should be destroyed at all cost. While repeating and reciting the tired old phrases that once had people rushing to it, but now cannot convince even its self-serving members.

The divide between UMNO and the voters remain as intractible in Kedah and not only there. Dr Mahathir's home is in Anak Bukit, so his state assemblyman is from PAS and has been since 1995. The BN had to be returned in Anak Bukit for the two-thirds majority in the Kedah state assembly it lost in the Lunas bye-election earlier. Wresting Pendang from PAS is a poor substitute. The Kedah voter decided to split his loyalty, give one to UMNO and one to PAS, but made sure UMNO got the wrong one. With a general election looming within a year, BN and UMNO must anticipate, if they proceed as now, of losing the state to PAS and its coalition partners.

When the police break up demonstrations or crack down on dissent, it has no equal, especially with flailing batons, tear gas and M-16s. When it comes to solving crimes or what they are paid to do, it would rather not. Look at murders unsolved. If you report a robbery, it would often be the last you hear of it. When was the last time a murder was solved with solid police work? Just two comes to mind: the murders of Audrey Mellisa and Dr Joe Fernandez, the MIC state assemblyman for Lunas. Where is the police where they should be? Look at the chaos of every day life that would not be if the police are around. Laws are made, and cheerfully ignored, because the police do not care if they are obeyed. Just one example: if you get off an LRT station and wait for a taxi at the taxi stand, you could whistle for one; for getting one is a mad free-for-all. Rules are cheerly ignored, and no one cares.

The BN and UMNO is in shock with every byelection, as shown in every byelection since 1999: Sanggang, in April 2000; Teluk Kemang, in June 2000; Lunas, in November 2000; Indera Kayangan, in January 2002; Ketari, in March. When discussing UMNO's role, I exclude its role in Sabah, where UMNO spread its wings in a fit and found it bit more than it could chew. UMNO Sabah is run by remote control from Kuala Lumpur, with all the problems that entail. So I exclude the Likas byelection last year from this discussion. Different rules apply there, and a total defeat for UMNO there would not cause the hurricane a handful of constituencies here.

So, it goes into battle with the cards stacked against it. But the odds are its candidate be returned: the BN stacks the cards towards it in every election. The rules are blur and in its favour that it is all but impossible for the opposition to unseat it. It is this cynicism that makes Malaysians look for redress other than at the ballot box. It is not widespread, but the mood is at odds with the government's commitment to electoral representation. The subtle threats would be more apparent in this than at any other. The ground shifts, perhaps for good. So that did not work in Lunas; it did in Indera Kayangan; probably would in Ketari. That is why it is too close to call who would romp home on Easter Sunday. After all, elections in Malaysia are free but not fair.

The DAP sulked in Lunas when Keadilan contested in what was a traditional DAP seat even if it was consistently defeated; in Indera Kayangan, it would not even campaign for the Keadilan candidate, even threatening to interdict a DAP MP who did; it never won this seat too. That did not prevent the opposition from doing better than it did. In Ketari, it insists on its candidate and, unusually named him. Keadilan also wanted the seat. Since the DAP is not in the BA, Keadilan could field a candidate as well. That would only ensure an easy victory for the BN. As it happens, Keadilan decided not to. But the lead up to it suggests that opposition unity is as fragile, if not worse, than within BN. This hobbles the BN election campaign, but it could be worse in opposition ranks too.

The Opposition has not learnt its lesson. In every byelection, the same tired allegations against the BN is aired. It gets a few claps and a few laughs. The BN knows then nothing has changed, and it can do what it likes to throw rings around the opposition. The one election where this did not work was Lunas. When busloads of BN vote fraudsters were stopped, in Lunas, it turned the tide. But Lunas, like lightning, will not strike twice. Indeed, the BN cashed in on it. When busloads of "tourists and shoppers" arrived in Kangar, three organised by an UMNO assemblywoman from Selangor, were stopped, they were meant to be. The traffic jams in Kangar on the morning of the election showed that the vote fraudsters arrived on their own.

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.

But the BN fights back. With a split Chinese community, the BN must get the Malay community on its side. But that is divided between UMNO and PAS, and with a common hatred for Dato' Seri Shahidan. The battle is not lost: UMNO's star campaigner is its vice president and former Selangor mentri besar, Tan Sri Muhammad Taib. Alone amongst those from out of state, he and his men mollify the Malay to vote for BN. Even the opposition credits him for this change, unimagined on nomination day last week. Half the nearly 4,000 Malay voters now expect to vote BN, when it was only 30 per cent earlier. In 1999, a united MCA could hold its ground when the Malay vot dissipated. He is there day and night and, like at the Lunas byelection, stays out of the limelight but works relentlessly to turn the Malay voter around. It is said, and not in jest, that if there were five men like him, the MIC, not Keadilan, would have retained Lunas. But there is no party worker like him in the MCA ranks. Who would win is what happens in the next two days.

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 Likas byelection in Sabah, like Lunas in Kedah last year, takes centre stage. With polling tomorrow (21 July 01), the governing state and federal National Front coalition finds the going tough and difficult, the price for ignoring, and hiding, the political and cultural cracks and fissures in the state, not just in Likas. Lunas made the National Front tremble, Likas could well on the knife's edge.

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 Youth calls to stop building Chinese and Tamil schools. The Prime Minister and UMNO president, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, denies it, but fans the xenophobic flames by attacking Chinese newspapers for ensuring the National Front's defeat in the Lunas byelection. The home minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, says his minister tracks all newspapers and if any breaches the law, their editors are hauled up and told.

As usual, the man triviliases the issues in the MCA takeover of the Nanyang Press. His version of the truth is when the newspapers attack the opposition and praise his worldview of events. The Chinese community does not accept that as a useful yardstick. Not any more. Dr Mahathir accuses the two papers of unfair reporting during the Lunas byelection.

Now the Nanyang Press is firmly in UMNO hands. UMNO need not own it. Why should it when its president can instruct? The UMNO president gave the most convincing reason why the MCA should own the Nanyang Press: the two newspapers were most critical of the National Front during the Lunas by-election.

The Gang of 8 runs around the country, dropping legal and political bombshells, arguing that the deal would lead the MCA to perdition. "Remember Lunas" is its battle cry, referring to the byelection that starkly reminded the National Front and the MCA that to win elections, the people must vote for them, and they would not if the leaders take them for expensive rides.

He had done such a good job revitalising the paper that it has become, for many, the newspaper of choice. Mr Tan and Mr Ho brought with him a team of professionals and columnists who provided insights, and crystal clear writing, Malaysians are unused to in their newspapers. The Sun on Sunday is (was?) without doubt the best of the crowd. But it upset the others. And the unsual stance of making what is written readable, and the selection of stories to give it a balance, was viewed with distaste at the ministry of home affairs. It had the best coverage of the Lunas byelection, with its insights and its sustained reporting and comment.

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