Over the years, MPs were kept in the dark, and when they asked questions, they were threatened with defamation suits. The National Front got its favourite business men to silence the journalists. Tan Sri Vincent Tan took me to court, and on a serious of moves which showed that he gets the judges he wants, won all the way to the federal court. By then he was out, the I was given a rehearing of the Federal Court on the grounds that the Chief Justice had gone on a holiday with the lawyer for Tan Sri Vincent Tan. This was followed by Tan Sri Ting Pek Khiing of Ekran, who sued me in Miri and I have to go there to file. Both are friends of the former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. Tan Sri Ting's case did not go any further after he could not justitify his claim as events caught up with them, is now out of the corporate scene, a diabetic in Singapore. Tan Sri Vincent is ignored by the prime minister's friends now, and his flagship, Berjaya Corporation, owes RM800 million, most to its subsidiary. Defamation action will succeed, in Malaysia and Singapore, is it is quickly settled. The National Kidney Foundation in Singapore sued any one who said it was spending unnecessary money, but according to a government-appointed firm of accounts, it seems it did. But the National Kidney Foundation is in trouble, and the newspapers there go to town, because the PAP wants to bring down a popular politician.

At present, one in two MPs are in the federal government – as ministers, deputy ministers and parliametary secretaries. There are about 90 MPs in government. He wants to reduce that. He also wants to sack, it is rumoured, six cabinet ministers, all of whom had gone to Mecca so that they would not be. Even Tun Mahathir Mohamed, lord of all he surveyed, could not prune it, and his cabinet reshuffles in 22 years of office, was consequential. Pak Lah is stopped in his tracks. He is confused. He son-in-law has made it clear that his men must hold cabinet posts. There is already talk that Pak Lah is not his own man. He informed the cabinet yesterday he has signed a treaty with Japan, which gives Japan most favoured nation status and allows that country to import tax free its cars. In return, Malaysia will get tax free status in Japan for fruits they do not want. The United States has been pushing Malaysia to sign this treaty for a while – Tun Mahathir refused, because it was to Malaysia's disadvantage. It now wants Malaysia to support Australia and New Zealand as members of ASEAN. Pak Lah must explain why he only informed, and not discussed with, his cabinet about the agreement with Japan.

NO PUBLIC DEBATE EXISTS in Malaysia. The threat of defamation, usually by men and companies with much to keep hidden, is thrown with alacrity to establish their position. They are in a hurry for they will lose their influence when the prime minister retires. Tan Sri Vincent Tan and Berjaya Corporation were Mr Khairy and ECM Libra. He sued this writer for defamation ten years ago, but that is not over yet although he and his company does not influence Pak Lah now as he did Tun Mahathir Mohamed then. He tries to be close to Pak Lah, but can he succeed where there is ECM Libra around? These companies will not explain, and Malaysians will know them as superb companies, and mention only that it is successful because they are close to the prime minister. Even political parties and MPs are not allowed to ask questions. Malaysians should be kept ignorant while these companies stole a march over other companies which do not have such connections.

Mr Khairy and ECM Libra has not filed police reports for good reason. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, when deputy prime minister, filed police reports, against the advise of the then prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, against the author of the book in Malay, "50 reasons why Anwar Ibrahim cannot be Prime Minister." The police report was used to investigate him, not the author of the book, he was arrested, humiliated by the police, and spent six years in jail. Lodging police reports is dangerous to Mr Khairy's and ECM's health. Mr Khairy and the company he is three per cent owner of has instead sued an opposition company, harakah daily, and Mr Husam, who could be mentri besar of Kelantan in the future. It is not Mr Khairy and ECM Libra who would be on trial, but Pak Lah as prime minister. His brother's company supplies food to MAS at inflated rates. His son's company, SCOMI, is Petronas' biggest contractor, within two years of his being prime minister.

THE PRIME MNISTER IS an Islamic scholar because he has a degree in Islamic studies, so goes the spin. But while he is a deeply religious man, as many are, even he would admit he is no scholar. He has been built into one when he became prime minister. Tun Mahathir is a doctor, a great one at that, although he stopped practicing more than 30 years ago. The health minister, Doctor Chua Soi Lek graduated as a doctor, but gave it up for politics about the same time. But both are described as medical doctors. News reports, then of Tun Mahathir and Dato' Chua now, speak of their expertise in medicine, but neither would admit to all that. Dato' Ling Liong Sik, a medical graduate from Singapore, gave up his medical practice about a quarter of a centry ago, but he was treated in office as if he knew more than the specialists at the University Hospital. Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, before he entered Parliament, was known for his brawn than brain; but today in office it is reversed.

THE FORMER PRIME MINISTER, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, 79, is rushed to the United States after doctors at the Institiut Jantung Negara (National Heart Institute) ruled out a bypass for the second time. He had a heart attack about Christmas and left, according to sources, "at the end of 2005 or early 2006". Given his age, and his inclement health, the doctors here ruled out a second bypass; he had his first done in 1988. This would effectively rule him out from active politics for at least three months. This would affect the fate of the prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, his son-in-law and the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. If he comes back, it is a bonus for Dato' Seri Najib; if he does not, for Pak Lah and his son-in-law, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin. Tun Mahathir coming into active politics in 2005 has forced Pak Lah to cancel his plans for a cabinet reshuffle; all Tun Mahathir's men still in Pak Lah's cabinet were going to be axed. But Tun Mahathir met these men for his own post-Cabinet meeting at the KLCC every Wednesday.

So why is the cabinet meeting in a hurry over the death of a man. The reports are not ready. But this death is important in making sure the next prime minister is not the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. With the man's death – whoever is responsible – Mr Khairy has to start from afresh to bring down. The former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir's heart attack at Christmas has slowed down the deputy prime minister. If he decides not to be involved in Malaysian politics as a result, Dato' Seri Najib, who depended on him, would have a difficult fight in 2006 but it he decides to come back, he becomes an intractible enemy of Mr Khairy.. Since Mr Khairy decides the important decisions in the government, the death is discussed in the Cabinet.

Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed said the Internet would not be censored. He meant well, to make Malaysia a centre for Internet and other communications.

The Malay would make sure of that. I knew an Indian who had been promoted second in charge, but he never acted, for that was given to his junior, who was of course a Malay. In the army, he does not get to be higher than lieutenant colonel, which he is given as a retirement rank, perhaps two years before. A doctor in the ultra-modern Selayang Hospital, who was weaned from the US, went back after he could not work: his Malay assistants, who included doctors, would not take orders from him. He found himself doing all the work himself, arriving at 6.00 am to prepare for his first patient three hours later. And he had excellent references: the then prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, and the then health minister, a class mate of his father.

The Malaysian media, all owned by National Front or its members, have described ECM Libra as a boutique investment firm in which, it is alleged, the Malay investors are on the driving seat. It is far from the truth as possible. Companies get into difficulties once their patron prime minister leaves the scene. As has happened to companies owned by business men close to the former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. It gave the companies a fillip, the x factor (if you like), during the premiership and difficultures when the great man departs. ECM Libra did not make it to the top before Pak Lah and revels in that relationship. But ECM Libra is someway involved in foreign, particularly Singapore, firms taking key states in Malaysian government firms.

The National Front government saw this has a hot potato. More than one cabinet minister was roped in to quell the revolt, which got the women senators from government and the opposition PAS together. They drafted a letter to the Prime Minister, whose department had initiated the bill, requesting that it be withdrawn. It would not, if the political position of Dato' Seri Nazri Aziz is any guide. It would also restrict the government's hands in future. The non-Islamic parties in the National Front does not want to get involved, and will be thrown by the wayside in this. But the National Front has realised that it cannot have its way in parliament even if it controls most of the seats. It has dissensions within it - those who do not support the ruling group; those that support Tun Mahathir Mohamed, the former prime minister; those who support Tengku Razaleigh, the former finance minister; those that support Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister who is in the opposition. It has already seen Islam Hadhari, which is Pak Lah's version of Islam, to the sidelines when PAS is around. Now it is the women from the National Front who has caused Pak Lah to be careful of his legislative plans. He has ensured that the whip will allow the senate to pass the bill. But it would be like telling the Yang Di Pertuan Agung not to address a function he had agreed to. In this revolt by the National Front women senators, it loses whether it succeds in the senate passing the bill or not. The government would have to make its plans carefully and with consultation.

This ASEAN Summit agreed to set up the East Asian Summit, proposed earlier by former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. But it was more concerned to making Australia and New Zealand as members than North Korea. There is much discussion if Russia would be a member, although it should be because of its Asian land north of China. It showed the United States' fear of China and Russia more than anything else, and afraid that the EAS may make decisions behind their backs. It sees China as a threat, but China has not ever fought behind its boundaries, with eleven countries on its periphery. Its aim is to keep its borders safe from outsiders. The last time it left its borders was in the Yuan dynasty in the 13th century, and it stopped when the Ming dynasty (17th to the 20th century). The ASEAN leaders, reading from the local newspapers, ignored all that, and welcomed Australia and New Zealand into the organisation. The EAS began with a whimper and will linger on with a whimper.

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.

But is the Malaysian government's support for the Thai Malays to do with PAS's governance of Kelantan state? The National Front government also wants the National Front to rule Kelantan. Its policy in southern Thailand - the former foreign minister Tengku Ahmad Rithaudeen is a prince from the Pattani sultanate, and his sister is the King's mother - is dictated in recent years by its electoral effort to unseat PAS in Kelantan. Tun Mahathir Mohamed, the former Prime Minister, believed that the southern Thai Malays should be part of Malaysia, and he was single minded about it, but in secret. He was open to having his mind changed. It was he who passed on the Malaysian government's views on the Thai Malays to the Thai Prime Minister, Mr Thaksin Shinawatra. He also saw the King of Thailand. Although he believed southern Thai should be part of Malaysia, he was respected in Thailand. He stepped down in 2003 because he was forced to. He was too independent a man to be Prime Minister, in the US's eyes. His wife, with whom he discussed major matters of personal important, was surprised that he did. The event is noted by the minister for international trade and industry, Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, crying on stage and rushed to his side. But she is his intractable enemy now.

The National Front is in disarray. Individual presidents chart their own course of action, known only at the beginning of their leadership. The moment Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over as Prime Minister, his predecessor, Tun Mahathir's view, was discarded, and Pak Lah's views now took precedence. Islam Hadhari was the order of the day. Everyone talked of it, as if a new religion had been formed. But it was not in Pengkalen Pasir. The National Front policy has its confrontational policies adopted by stealth. Islam Hadhari cannot be a matter of debate. It was all right in the early days of independence, or even when the New Economic Policy was implemented in 1970, but not all right in 2005. The National Front cannot order the youths to follow its president's dictates, let alone other policies, because the youths, often children of Malaysians born after Merdeka in 1957, have difference concerns than the founders of UMNO or the Alliance or even the National Front had in mind. The youngsters of today cannot get jobs, have concerns different when the National Front leaders were youths at the time of independence, will have the National Front racial components ignore them at the best of times. The youth will rally to it by promises of good times to come, but it has not come, and those from all races, join hands in unision against the National Front.

It is on shaky ground when it asks PAS to resign from the state government because it has now only a one-seat majority. In 1969, the Alliance ruled Perak and Selangor with a one-seat majority for three years, when the National Front was formed with opposition parties like Gerakanan and the People's Progressive Party joined it, along with several others including Parti Se-Islam Malaysia, now its sworn enemy for the Malay mantle. After Dr Mahathir won the UMNO presidency by 40 votes against Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah in 1987, he said he would not resign with even with a one vote majority. Since the state assembly meets only twice a year, the PAS state government in Kelantan, sits tight and unless it amends the state constitution, which needs a two-thirds majority, it is safe. The National Front, which includes UMNO, can vote against the budget, but it would not vote against any bill which pays them its allowance. It has voted the budget every time PAS was in power. It was forced out in 1978 by a force majeure organised by the National Front. The propaganda machine is to get all people to vote against PAS, not look at the realities. It is fair to ask the Alliance why it did not resign when it had only a one-seat majority in Selangor and Perak in 1969, and why Tun Mahathir said that he would remain if he won by one vote. That PAS has ruled Kelantan for 37 years after the first general elections in 1959 put paid to the notion that it does not know how to rule.

The newspapers, all owned by National Front members, has become party newspapers. How they cover the Pengkalen Pasir byelection shows it. Dato' Seri Anwar was listened to rapturously by a crowd of 10,000. But there is hardly any report of that in the mainstream media. It is the internet that carries such news. It is the internet that splashed the story of the nude China woman. The print media did not report it until their reporters could get some one in authority who could rebut it. But that is what party organs do. That is what the mainstream newspapers do. This present crisis will not go away, not so long as the Chinese tourists do not return. But Malaysia should worry about this. There is no rapport between Thai Prime Minister and his Malaysian counterpart, because each took positions on the Thai Muslims and made statements each wished each had not. So, a modus vivendi was reached by getting Tun Mahathir Mohamed, the former prime minister, to meet Mr Thakson Shinawatra. Today, there is calm in the Thai South, but that to do with a Thai editor locking horns with him. But both Malaysia and Thailand is afraid that the Thai Muslims in the south would want independent of either. But Malaysia is used to this: it lost the other oil producing Malay state, Brunei, from joining Malaysia by its own mistakes.

THERE IS EMBARASSED FACES in the Police as the Prime Minister has ordered an investigation of how a naked woman came to do the ear squat in a police cell. The Deputy IGP, Dato' Musa Hassa, however, wants to find out how the MMS videoclip came to be taken. He has eaten his words now that Pak Lah had said the incident must be investigated. If the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, could be beaten to a pulp by no less than the then IGP, Dato' Rahim Noor, what about the ordinary man in the street? Dato' Rahim Noor justified beating Dato' Seri Anwar because the latter, trussed up, had hurled the word 'anjing' for beating him up. It seems standard procedure for the Police to beat up a suspect. What is worse is that Dato' Seri Anwar was arrested and beaten up because he was on the wrong side of the then Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir. Dato' Musa Hassan is promoted to his present post so that he could forestall Dato' Seri Anwar on his political comeback, that he was to stop Dato' Seri Anwar from rejoining UMNO, whose deputy president he once was. If high ranking Malaysians are treated badly by the Police, then what hope is there for a visiting tourist who is not Caucasian. Caucasian troops are treated gingerly, but they do not bring enough money. Depending on them alone will not fill the hotels and faciliies here. The rich Chinese would.

But the Malaysian government is not functioning as it should. A Malaysian cabinet meets to advise a policeman not to sue a student. What was his superiors doing when this was going on? What was the Inspector-General of Police doing? In this instance, instead of abrogating his responsibility, he has handed it to the cabinet. Need it be said that the policeman is Malay and the student a Chinese. But the IGP should have removed the police officer in charge, and told the policeman he should not file a legal suit. If he does not want to do it, he should resign. The Malaysian Police is for all people, The Malaysian cabinet is not involved in a disciplinary matter. Even the minister is not involved. In Malaysia, the politician has taken over the functions of the civil servant. But he does not want to take decisions for the greater agenda of Malay ketuanan. So he brings it to the cabinet. But the cabinet does not want to take a decision either. It has advised the policeman not to sue the student, and instructed the home affairs minister to tell the Chinese a watered down version of the situation in Malaysia. But Dato' Seri Khalid should already be in China if he had done his work properly! The cabinet discusses policy which the civil servant carries out. Here the prime minister makes policy which the cabinet echoes, but discards once the prime minister leaves the scene. Tun Mahathir's policies, some of which are execreble but most are relevant to the Malaysia of the future, disappeared from the government's world view once he left the scene. There is a hidden hand creating the problems, but that exists because it is easy to upset the politician. The divide between politicians and the civil servant has disappeared, and the average Malaysian does not know who is who.

THE BYELECTIONS FOR THE Pengkalen Pasir state assembly constituency in Kelantan is the first since the general elections last year. The result will make no difference to who governs Kelantan but the main political parties involved, the National Front though practically UMNO, and PAS are treating it as a matter of life or death. UMNO has called for the state government to resign if it wins, though why the PAS government should not when it can rule the state whatever the result. It was Tun Mahathir who said he would remain prime minister even if the National Front won by one seat. PAS could well be in that position after the byelections. But it is seen as a 'prestige' issue for both that they win Pengkalen Pasir. For UMNO it is a prestige issue, but little else. The leaders of UMNO, including the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, have visited Pengkalen Pasir in the runup to the byelections. There is a permanent UMNO presence from outside in Pengkelan Pasir. The UMNO leader in Kelantan has asked that UMNO and PAS reveal their candidate simultaneously so that one would not get an advantage over the other. They are trying to change the political rules when National Front meets PAS in a PAS- ruled state. But PAS is nervous as well, though why it should be beats every rational Malaysian. UMNO leaders from Kelantan are at odds with the head of the state UMNO, and they work hard to diminish him. And what better way is there than make sure he falls flat in Pengkalen Pasir. A victory for UMNO there would benefit him, and that is not what they want.

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