HE IS THE SON-IN-LAW of the Prime Minister but he has brought UMNO, the leading party in the National Front, to its knees. He caused so much damage that it is probably too late for him to withdraw. His actions to show he is a rich man – by buying 3 per cent of ECM Libra for RM9.2 million, for example – has backfired on Pak Lah and UMNO. But Mr Khairy Jamaluddin thinks he can ride through, going after his critics with defaMation suits, answering no questions, riding rough shod over UMNO members. Pak Lah cannot reshuffle his cabinet, as he should have by now, because Mr Khairy wants his men in it. The more power Mr Khairy has in Pak Lah's government, the more split UMNO will be. The National Front is no longer as the first prime minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, had envisaged it: a meeting of equals, in which the Malaysian Chinese Association and Malaysian Indian Congress leaders in cabinet had as much say as he himself. He used to say that the item on hand was not discussed in the cabinet if either disagreed. It was brought later, after negotiations had removed the objection. That was then. Now, the non-UMNO leaders in the National Front want to be known as the first to support an UMNO proposal. After all, it was their vote that made Malaysia an Islamic nation in practice, or that women are made second-class citizens.

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.

THE KHAIRY CHRONICLES, now in its 23rd part in Malaysia Today, has become uncomfortable to the young man. Who writes it is not known, Raja Petra Raja Kamaruddin, editor and the driving force behind it, will not say. But it contains many bullets that UMNO enemies of Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, the son-in-law of the Prime Minister, use with damaging accuracy. Mr Khairy has come from nowhere, married Pak Lah's daughter, and runs the Malaysian government: Pak Lah depends on him, over tried and tested civil servants, who are forced to follow what Mr Khairy decides. As more damaging inforMation comes to light, not only the Khairy Chronicles, they are picked up by his UMNO enemies, who distribute photostats of the original and Malay translation in their balliwicks. The Pengkalen Pasir byelection in Kelantan was not, in Mr Khairy's view, a byelection with PAS, although it was also that, but between his friends and enemies in UMNO. He is a young man in a hurry. He operates behind the scenes, puts his supporters in front. But he is now forced into the open. He does not like it.

Pak Lah did not want want those dropped from his cabinet go to Tun Mahathir; so, he could not reshuffle the cabinet yet. He should have reshuffled his cabinet immediately after his swept into power earlier this year. It does not Matter now when he reshuffles his Cabinet; he loses lustre when he does it. He took the line of least resistance, and adopted his predecessor's cabinet as his own. But with UMNO divided, that was not wise. Pak Lah took over with much goodwill, but frittered it away by making statements he did not mean, barking at policy lapses instead of correcting them, taking no action on Malay head of government companies who had brought the companies to be rescued. No head of Bank Bumiputra has been punished for bankrupting Bank Bumiputra, but the government rescuing it four times from bankruptcy. More than 90 per cent of government guarantees of about $20 billion was to keep its companies afloat.

There is a glass ceiling for the non-Malays. The Malay would not take orders from a non-Malay. So, even at the lower ranks, the non-Malay is shut out for promotion. No non-Malay becomes chief clerks or Matrons. Those seen had held the jobs before it was decided the non-Malay could not be. But there are due to retire. And none of the non-Malays can expect promotion on the same basis as the Malay. The inspector-general of police, Tun Haniff Omar, repeats the canard of the government: that the non-Malay is more interested in the private sector because he would be paid more. It is not true. He has no choice.

Two cabinet ministers – the MCA president and the minister for local government and housing, Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting; the human resources minister, Dato' Fong Chan Onn – and the Kuala Lumpur mayor, Dato' Ruslan Hasan were at Dr Liew's house after the death. Other people have died from the contractor's mishap, but they went to their graves unmourned or visited by cabinet ministers. But Dr Liew is an important cog in the wheel of Mr Khairy reducing Dato' Seri Najib a cipher. Dato' Ruslan has said the contractor did not breach the regulations, that dropping a two tonne concrete on anyone on the road is alright. But he is not sure. He said more inforMation is needed, and this would be detailed in his report.

There is no discussion of the issues that Matter, only a BN slant to it. It does not Matter which newspaper one reads, it has the viewpoint of its owner - but that it is from the BN, especially of its leaders, is not in doubt.

UMNO was founded in 1946 for a different purpose than the official spin has it. So its women's and youth wing. Dato' Onn, the founder of UMNO and grandfather of Hishamuddin, had got the women to protest the British plans to reduce Malay sultans to a cipher, which is how they came into politics. The first UMNO youth president was Tun Hussein, Hishamuddin's father and Malaysian prime minister. The forMation of Putera UMNO for reasons other than the progress of Malaysia, or even of the Malays, is a distorition, The only innovation it has made to its membership is Puteri UMNO; the other political parties, particularly PAS, have formed their own version of Puteri UMNO.

In the present scandals, the non-Muslim parties in the National Front, should have been in the forefront, but have said nothing. The leaders of the Malaysian Chinese Association, the Malaysian Indian Congress, Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, People's Progressive Party will talk strongly on peripheral Matters, but not on issues that affect the people they represent. It is wrong to assume that Malaysians would remain quiet for all time. It is only the Muslim women and the Hindu who continue to articulate the 'injustices' in a Hindu being buried as a Muslim. Similarly, the Muslim women are het up about their denigrtion in Malaysian society. The newspapers and the internet have registered their anger, but the fact remains that the Hindu. Buddhist or Chritisian spouse of a man who has secretly converted to Islam has no legal rights. The courts have declared that she cannot come to the civil courts for justice, and the Sharia courts have said it would only hear cases brought by Muslims. There has been instances were Chinese have been so treated, but that is forgotten now.

Mr Khairy Jamaluddin did not start life a rich man. He was the son of a diploMat, educated at government expense, even in Oxford. He tried too fast to be in Parliament, but he stumbled badly. He was not an UMNO candidate for elections to Parliament from Rembau. He has too many enemies in the state, one of whom is the former mentri besar and federal cabinet minister, Dato' Isa Samad. His behind-the-scenes work enabled that man to be removed from the cabinet, but he remains a power in the state. But he does not know the Malay or Malaysian ground. But he believes he can survive at the top by his connections and his less-than-honest acquisition of wealth. It has led to questions on how he got that much in so short a time. He believes he can get to the top without explaining anything, threatening legal action against those who has a contrarian view, and by being close to those in power. But he cannot, unless he explains himself as a politician, business man, and what he does for a living, and how he came to all that wealth.

In the other case, the National Front government has passed a law disallowing half the population from going to one of its court systems. The civil courts told the wife of Lance Corporal Moorthy that it cannot hear her case, said in effect could not go to the Sharia courts, therefore her husband had to be buried a Muslim. She had no standing in the Matter and had to allow the religious affairs department to bury him as a Muslim. The Indians, particularly the Hindus, are up in arms at this 'gross injustice'. The Malaysian Indian Congress, which should have taken the cudgels on behalf of the wife, would rather not. The Peoples' Progressive Party would rather blame National Front politicians for bribery in local councils than get involved in this religious tug-of-war. They know fully well the people would vote the National Front in at the next election or byelection. So why should they get involved. The Chinese and those of Sarawak and Sabah do not want to get involved. So it becomes a women's issue or an Indian issue, and the others stay away.

Over the years, the opposition parties often take the law into their hands. Harakah, the PAS party organ, is published twice monthly, and is sold to the general public, though it cannot, and gets its views heard throughout the land. It sells more than 200,000 copies every issue, and more during elections or byelections. It has a multiracial leadership because eight of its pages are in English. It is read avidly because it contains the alternative point of view, a refreshing change from the Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil newspapers which carry only the National Front point of view. It carries the views of opposition leaders only when they support the National Front views, or if they are in trouble. The opposition leaders, instead of fighting the existing position of the National Front, take the line of least resistance, and survive in the National Front shadow. But there are exceptions. PAS is committed to an Islamic state as it proclaimed when the religious wing broke off from UMNO in 1951. The Parti Rakyat Malaysia remained a thinking man's party, and the rump after its split with the Parti Socialis Malaysia has joined Parti Keadilan Rakyat, formed to get Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim from jail. The other political parties do not Matter because it is personality splits with parties in the National Front that formed them, and they would usually like to replace their alter egos in the National Front. National Front leaders will not admit it but the views although publicly decried is quietly taken as its.

THE NATIONAL FRONT GOVERNMENT can only pass laws on the conduct of Islam for Kuala Lumpur. In other states, although they are in power, they can only do with the consent of the ruler for it is ordained in the Federal Constition, which the National Front and its previous Alliance is responsible. It got its first chance at enacting Islamic law when Parliament, which it controls, got the legal right to pass laws for the Federal Territory. The Federal Territory now consists of Kuala Lumpur, Putra Jaya, and Labuan. The Islamic Family Law (Amendment) (FT) Act is the result. It can only persuade the states, even though it rules all but one, because the consent of the rules is necessary. It would not touch on Islam in its legislation because of this. But it now needs to prove to Malaysians that it is more Islamically inclined, to prove to PAS that it is superior in the introduction of Islam into Malaysia. But it is unfair to call it the work of the National Front. It is UMNO's view, which like in all Matters the other parties, Islamic or otherwise, in the National Front defer. It became an issue it had to use threats because the group most affected, the women, protested. But it protested too late. It should have protested before the bill was discussed in the Lower House of Parliament in September.

THE MINISTER IN CHARGE OF PARLIAMENT, otherwise known as minister in the Prime Minister's Department. has made it clear that the Senate is not for discussion and eventually vote on contentious bills. He has warned the National Front women senators that they must vote against their conscience and for their own degradation. It does not Matter what they personally thought. The chairman of the Senate, in most countries elected but in Malaysia a sinecure for elderly National Front members, did not object. Those who did oppose it, and saw Dato' Seri Naziz Aziz, were told bluntly there would be no discussion or debate. It is final: the women will be second class citizens in their country. The non-Islamic members of the National Front did not object to this proposal, which UMNO had thought up to become more Islamic than the opposition PAS, and presumably agreed to it. Even the cabinet minister for women's affairs, a woman, had agreed to her downgrading. She values her position in the cabinet more than her sex. Women could be downgraded, in the name of Islam, if the National Front could steal a march over Parti Sa Islam or PAS. But this is only one of several laws passed which makes the non-Muslim and women second class citizens. A former climber of Mount Evert, an Indian, who was reduced to a cripple in a wheelchair after another accident, has died, and the Selangor Religious Affairs Department has insisted he be buried as a Muslim. His family says he was a Hindu, and should be buried as a Hindu. A former cabinet minister, an Indian, had to be buried urgently so that the Selangor Religious Affairs Department would not get at the body after the state funeral.

The ASEAN organisation does not deal with individuals. It does not interfere in each other's affairs. It should not deal with the Thai Malays. But it issued in its Summit communique its concern for internal affairs: it brought out its concern for one individual that the United States supports: the Myanmarese lady, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. But it could have delayed its extinction if it had also reported on other internal issues – the Thai Malays, Acheh and the Moluccas in Indonesia, Mindanao in the Philippines, even Sarawak and Sabah in East Malaysia, for example. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi heads one of theposition groups in Myanmar, abeit one the United States supports. Do we want to be unable to establish links with Mynamar if the 'wrong' opposition group takes over power. Malaysia supported the wrong part in Afghanisation by establishing diploMatic ties with the group in power, in which 'our' man, Gulbudeen HikMatyar, was Prime Minister, but it was swept any in the round-robin of governments the country is famous. Malaysia once had links with Afghanisation, but not any more.

THE PEOPLE IN POWER are confused. They have not realised the people challenge them at every turn. The post-inforMation age, which is now, is as destructive to the people in power as the Industrial Age was when it began in 1832. That enabled the rulers to ride rough shod over the people, who found their unique ways to confront that. What happens in society now was what happened before the Industrial Age. But the people will not succeed unless by intellectuals. In Malaysia, the National Front is still in power, since it attained power in 1955, but is worried at this development. The King, who had agreed to officiate a gathering, was told by officials in the Prime Minister's Department not to attend. It got intellectuals at the hall angry. The National Front showed weakness which it could not control. This meeting was organised by dissident UMNO members, and attended by all Malays, intellectuals, from PAS and Parti Keadilan Rakyat, and who used to be senior figures in the ancien regime. It was better organised to challenge than the reformasi movement of former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Annuar Ibrahim. The reformasi movement failed because though it was a ground revolt most of the intellectuals stayed away. Even then it caused fright in the National Front. The intellectuals in the National Front realised what could happen if it had succeeded, and fear is the result. The National Front changed its policies, trying to solve some of the issues the reformasi movement reformed. But the reformasi movement has fallen into the doldrums after Dato' Seri Annuar Ibrahim was released from prison. Now by and large it second guesses what the reformasi movement had in mind and looks over its shoulders at what the reformasi movement is doing. But the reformasi movement lit a light for others to follow.

NO INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION SURVIVES if it is not altered to fit the times. Nor would it survive if the promoters are not keen. The latest that will not survive is ASEAN. Nor would the East Asian Summit. Both have lost the reason for being. The EAS has become a talking shop, with all members afraid of China, and to make sure of that, it has admitted Australia and New Zealand as members, but not North Korea. The United States hates North Korea for its independence, and so it is not in the East Asian summit. The 2005 chairman of ASEAN put the knife into the organisation by doing all that a non-member, in this case the United States, wanted discussed. The ASEAN Summit thought that one Myanmarese lady was worth more in ASEAN than 4 million Thai Malays. Neither EAS nor ASEAN can discuss Matters of mutual concern without making sure the United States approved. In EAS, Australia and New Zealand are in it to make sure; in ASEAN, this year's chairman is touted as the United States' man. The Wall Street Journal thinks so. ASEAN and EAS has become talking shops, in which nothing of importance will be discussed. They have become organisations more important to the outside world, in which journalists and academics have become more important than the participants. Both ASEAN and EAS are dead, but it will linger on for years, because the countries want it to exist. But no decision they take will be of importance.

THE ASEAN SUMMIT IS OVER. It is held every year now, instead of occasionally as it was agreed in the past. The next one will be in the Philippines. The most important decision it has taken is to fine- tune the East Asian Summit, in which is invited the United States's Sheriff in the region, Australia, and New Zealand, which though has taken an independent stance in the past is always on the side of the West where it Matters. ASEAN was once an economic grouping, in which the foreign ministers met annually. It was effective then. Now it is another talking shop, more of interest to the Western academics than its members. It was founded in 1967 in Bangkok to stop Indonesia and Malaysia going to war with each other again. It met annually to discuss common issues. ASEAN was accused then of not pulling its weight, but as more nations became members, it lost its raison d'etre. Indonesia and Malaysia, and therefore Islam, was sideline as the Buddist nations - Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar - joined Thailand to dominate the grouping. It means nothing now. It is more like the European Union now. The presence of 2,000 journalists, and this did not include the 200 that came with the Indian prime minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, and the 300 was in the party of the Japanese prime minister, Mr Junizuro Koizumi, and the academics joined to make this meeting irrelevant.

More important, the average non-Malay can be persuaded, even if that is now more difficult - a Chinese voter, a former MCA executive in Pengkalen Pasir, who had moved to Kuala Lumpur in the last six months to take over his father's business, agreed to go back to vote only if he was given $1,000, air fare, and hotel and living expenses for three days in Pengkalen Pasir - but a Malay does not autoMatically vote for the National Front if he is brought to vote. And he is likely to complain if someone votes on his behalf. The National Front in the constituency is angry that he is superseded by the organisation in the centre, and is likely to join in the chorus of nay-sayers. The National Front in the centre organises a campaign that often results in more people than they are voters into the constituency, and what it says and does is often not useful in the campaign, but the voter in Johore Bahru or Kedah is told of the National Front's supposed efficient in Kelantan, but is ignored by voters in the Kelantan constituency.

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.

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