UMNO is unhappy with the changes. There is no avenue for it to make its views known. But where once they would keep quiet for a larger goal, today they have no qualms about what they fell or think. In the usual UMNO meeting points - the warongs, the tea stalls, the meeting places dotted around the country. And egged on by others who were once UMNO members and who do not care for it. Which is why UMNO leaders now have to exhort its members that all is above board. The UMNO youth leader, Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein, said it is in his usual combative way. It did not still the opposition. Now two UMNO vice president, no less, repeat the same message. Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, who is also domestic trade and consumer affairs minister, insists only a "small" number is unhappy at the new UMNO division leaders. Tan Sri Muhammad Taib said UMNO would tolerate the dissatisfied and the disgruntled, but if they support the Opposition as a result they would face disciplinary action. The UMNO information chief, Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayob, is philosophical for no rhyme or reason: "If we change there are problems, if we don't make changes there are problems. So we take the middle road, we make several changes here and there wherever necessary."

Some disturbing signs emerge. When he cut short his holidays for the F-1 motor race, Pak Lah invited him to chair the cabinet and the UMNO Supreme Council. It was reported at the time that he did so at Pak Lah's request. Nothing could be further than the truth. It was the Old Man's henchmen, notably cabinet minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and former cabinet minister, Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayob. Pak Lah had no choice but to accede. Now this group widens the attack to remove Pak Lah from the succession itself. Dr Mahathir was to have left to resume his holidays last month. But he stays back. Why? And he is known to pass cutting remarks about Pak Lah's competence.

Indeed, when his aides and minders insisted that moves were afoot to put him in jail, more than a year before he was, Dato' Seri Anwar brushed it aside. Both Dr Mahathir and Dato' Seri Anwar regarded their relationship as that of a father and son, and Dato' Seri Anwar could not accept, when told, months before it happened, that plans were afoot to displace him. One example would suffice. When they told him, in 1993, he could defeat Tun Ghafar Baba to be UMNO deputy president, Dato' Seri Anwar wanted proof. A summary was produced, but he wanted the working sheets which, incredulously and against all advice, he handed to Dr Mahathir, who passed it on to Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayob, the former cabinet minister and a Mahathir 'gofer'. The anti-Anwar forces in UMNO and the government had the goods to destroy them. Tun Daim and others in the Mahathir camp realised the implications of Dato' Seri Anwar as Prime Minister. And they moved swiftly. In one misjudged move, Dato' Seri Anwar planned his own destruction. But he also put at risk all those who worked for him. A fatal slip, and not for Dato' Seri Anwar alone.

However vehemently Dr Mahathir and his conspirators deny it, there was a conspiracy. Just one episode will suffice. In 1998, before Dato' Seri Anwar's sacking, six men -- Two Tuns, two Tengkus, two Junids -- met in London. It was they who decided on the Khalid Jefri book, "Fifty Reasons why Dato' Seri Anwar cannot be PM". They are cabinet minister Tun Daim Zainuddin, former deputy prime minister, Tun Ghafar Baba, the new cabinet minister, Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, former cabinet minister, Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayob and the former cabinet minister and former mentri besar of Kedah, Tan Sri Sanusi Junid. Tengku Razaleigh, when I asked him about it at the time, said he was in London at the time and had run into them. Tan Sri Sanusi Junid was, and is, loyal to Dr Mahathir and has told me, he is "Dr Mahathir's Gurkha", that he has no animus towards Dato' Seri Anwar but in a clash between the two, it is Dr Mahathir he backs.

Why is Dato' Jamaluddin specially favoured to leap into the cabinet from the backbenches? He is chairman of the electricity utility, Tenaga Nasional Berhad. Therein lies a tale. When Dr Mahathir desperately wanted to have tea and scones with President Bush in the White House, the State Department was lukewarm. So private channcels were lobbied. Three Malaysians got into the act: the former cabinet minister, Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayob; the minister of justice, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim; The foreign minister, Dato' Seri Syed Hamid Albar, through Wisma Putra, th foreign ministry. Tan Sri Megat Junid pulled it off, with a budget of US$10 million, to which TNB contributed the most at the behest of its chairman. Many crony business men, like Tan Sri Francis Yeoh of the YTL Group, chipped in so that all could claim credit, and get contracts in the future. A Malaysian Malay woman married to a Jew and living in Washington lobbied and spread the lolly around. This use of money is not new. One key member of the Prime Minister's immediate staff charged a fee for meeting the Great Man, which the business men, especially Japanese and others, were only too happy to pay. Dato' Jamaluddin is rewarded with a cabinet post. Dr Mahathir wanted to reward Tan Sri Megat Junid with the IWK sewage privatisation, but the Cabinet baulked at it, and so he could not.

When he lost the US presidential election to President George Bush, Malaysia thought relations were on the mend. It was not. The Malaysian foreign ministry does not understand how the US government works, that several concentric circles of power have their own agendas which conflict with each other, and shoot themselves in the foot every time. Dr Mahathir could not get his meeting with President Bush because the State Department and the National Security Council were not keen they meet. Until the unofficial channels were used. Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Khas, the former cabinet minister, who got the Bush meeting, not Dato' Syed Hamid or Wisma Putra.

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