The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, wanted to put Malaysia and UMNO on a firm footing his 21 years in office made anything but. He decided, in an oracular firmness reminiscent of Zeus on Mount Olympus, the deputy prime minister and successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, must name his deputy prime minister and he must be the UMNO vice president and Malaysian defence minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. It did not matter if Dato' Seri Abdullah had his own candidate in mind, another vice president and Malaysian domestic trade minister, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, and Dato' Seri Najib not keen. The Oracle has spoken. So it shall come to pass. Dato' Abdullah, under pressure, said he would after 18 July 2002, with the Pendang and Anak Bukit bye-elections out of the way, with, as UMNO circles naively believed, brilliant National Front (BN) victories. It was not to be. And so the deputy prime minister's deputy prime minister.

But Dato' Seri Abdullah knows who he wants for his deputy: UMNO vice president, federal cabinet minister and Johore strongman, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin. He would not appoint Dato' Seri Najib on being told to. Nor Dato' Seri Najib accept it at gunpoint. Dr Mahathir believes this forestalls the infighting after he leaves. It is not as simple. All it would is realign political forces in UMNO to strengthen the UMNO warlords under a leader who could not move without their consent. If Dato' Seri Abdullah does appoint Dato' Seri Najib as Dr Mahathir wishes, would Tan Sri Muhiyuddin give up the ghost, and continue to back Dato' Seri Abdullah? Or would he move to the dark horse in this leadership struggle, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah? An informal arrangement exists between Tengku Razaleigh and Dato' Seri Najib should the former decide to contest the UMNO presidency at the next party elections next year. He well could -- whoever the candidate, Dr Mahathir or Dato' Seri Abdullah. With Tan Sri Muhiyuddin, if Dato' Seri Najib shifts.

The Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, wants his successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah), to name his deputy prime minister now, and wants him to be the UMNO vice president and Malaysian defence minister, Najib Tun Razak. Abdullah, on the other hand, leans towards another, Muhiyuddin Yassin. Any move to change horses midstream, for that is what he is ordered to, could redound on him, and deny him the succession. Dr Mahathir wants an orderly succession but realises he cannot have it if those after him go for each other's throats. He would rather have, despite his enthusiastic endorsement, Najib than Abdullah succeed him. But Najib accepts he is too young. It could embroil him in a leadership struggle he could not contain if he made a bid now. And he would rather be deputy to a more acceptable leader. That leader, in his view, is not Abdullah.

Dato' Seri Abdullah so wants this. But would the vice-president-who-wants-to-be-president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, agree? Already his supporters threaten if he is not the new deputy prime minister, they would back the Hermit of Langgak Golf, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, for UMNO president when elections are next held. Dato' Seri Abdullah has forged an alliance with another vice-president, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, and is in a dilemma: he loses ground whomsoever he chooses. Infighting within UMNO is so deadly, in ever-rising stakes, that Dr Mahathir could well find himself in the centre of open warfare amongst his lieutenants. One group wants him where he is, the other wants him out.

Haji Taib Azamudden, in a press statement, said when he was "Grand Imam" of the National Mosque, he came to know, or was consulted by the parties, of sexual peccadillos by UMNO leaders, Federal cabinet miniters and state chief ministers. He did not name names, but pointed directly at them. So large a list it was he said it was easier to name those cabinet ministers and mentris besar uninvolved! What he recited had been the stuff of political gossip for years. Most related to sexual trysts but one is accused of corruption, another of an UMNO cabinet minister's brother involved in drug trafficking. What he said refers to the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob; the four UMNO vice presidents -- Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, Tan Sri Mohamed Taib, Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz; the Perlis mentri besar, Dato' Seri Shahidan Kassim; the former Malacca mentri besar, Tan Sri Rahim Thamby Chik; the former federal cabinet minister and former Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Seri Abu Hassan Omar; the head of the National Fatwa Council, Dato' Ismail Ibrahim; and Dato' Zainuddin Mydin.

What companies did Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar take over? MMC, Pernas, Tanjong Pelapas Port, minority stakes in Gamuda, IJN. The list is incomplete. He is like many an UMNOPutra a stake holder for some one. He is over-extended, since he could not possibly have the tens of billions he needs to finance them and does not tap capital markets, but continues his acquisitions with abandon and without care. MMC signed an agency agreement in Poland for Polish-made Russian tanks hours before Malaysia agreed to buy them. This former petty rice trader established his connexions with the then deputy international trade and ministry minister, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin. The latter went on to be mentri besar of Johore. And Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar became his alter ego in business. He came into the Prime Minister's orbit when he built, gratis, a mosque in Kedah. He claims connexions with Central Asia but he is, like most of Arab descent in Malaysia, from Yemen.

Malaysia argues her case by loose political talk by the three men involved: the present and former mentris besar of Johore, Dato' Abdul Ghani Othman and (federal cabinet minister) Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, and the foreign minister, Dato' Seri Syed Hamid Albar, whose constituency adjoins the area of Singapore's reclamation plans. The heat rises by the day, and unfortunately in instances like this, heat is raised unnecessarily in the other as well.

But that option is not the opposition's. For if they did what UMNO does often, it would destroy UMNO. So says Tan Sri Mohamed. Would it? Well, if he thinks so, it must be. What caused his outburst? The Harakah online poll on who should succeed Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed as prime minister preferred the defence minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, followed by the domestic trade and consumer affairs minisster, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin. Then came UMNO's heir presumptive and deputy president, Malaysian deputy prime minister Dato' Seri Abdullah, followed by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Tan Sri Mohamed. If you take a rough poll of UMNO members who they want as the next prime minister, you would have this list, although Tengku Razaleigh might rank higher and Tan Sri Mohamed may not make the grade.

I would not have written the article if he had appointed a finance minister at least before he left. The usual names crop up -- Dato' Seri' Abdullah, Datin Rafidah Aziz, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, Tan Sri Azman Hashim, Tan Sri Abul Hassan Sulaiman, Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yaacob -- but whom UMNO wants he would not appoint, and whom he wants UMNO would disallow. He cannot ride roughshod over UMNO. He now thinks of Dato' Mokhzani of the bin Mahathir clan. This brought a flurry of emails caked in filth to question if my parents were married when I was born. He would not, indeed cannot, fill that vacancy. That whilst he may be in physical control by reason of the awesome power and feudal aura he has, he steadily and surely loses his grip. The New York Times has an article yesterday of how Sept 11 saved Dr Mahathir. It did. He is more autocratic than ever. But the short term gains he got from that, when he swiftly branded the fundamentalist Muslims who do not support him and UMNO as terrorist-inclined threatens to backfire.

What ought then to have settled in BN is not. UMNO still struggles for a role, with PAS and Keadilan taking steps which spell danger. PAS is forced to change. It now promises women candidates in future elections. It would run into heavy flak. But it is enough to unnerve UMNO. Its vice president, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, says in Johore Bahru it is a ploy to lure women voters. The gall of this man is astonishing. He believes women are so naive that they could be led by such "cheap" tricks, which he insists it is. He is worried with something more serious: UMNO is disbelieved. It is heavily involved in corruption, but it insists it fights it. It promises restraint in theory but is profligate in practice. It is also a sign that UMNO and BN cannot take advantage of Dr Mahathir's categorisation of PAS as a Taliban front.

The ten-sen tax caused a dispute within the cabinet. The criticisms of it were wide and furious. The cabinet ignored it. But it also caused the cabinet to behave in public like Keadilan meetings in private. The domestic trade and consumer affairs minister, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, insisted diesel prices would not be reduced at any cost. The entrepreneur development minister, Dato' Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, retorted that the cabinet had exempted three groups from it -- transport, fishing, and the government bodies. Tan Sri Muhiyuddin retorted that the cabinet had only agreed it should be reviewed. Now the finance ministry removes it.

The market yawned as usual when the government comes up with yet another proposal to jump start the economy. Share prices drifted as usual. To the government's chagrin, the budget was was seen for what it is: to bribe civil servants back into the fold. It did not have much for the others, and all saw the ten-sen increase in petrol prices as a dark sign of rising prices. The transport minister, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, had no doubt that this would not lead to a round-robin rise in the cost of living. How could it, he asked in the irrelevant arguments he spouts to defend the indefensible. The domestic trade and consumer affairs minister, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, warned those who made it an excuse to raise prices. The prime minister thought this fear was unwarranted. But the fear would not go away and strays into politics.

Not only in Selangor. The mentri besar of Malaysia's smallest state, Perlis, rapes his forest reserves. The accusations Dato' Fauzi Abdul Rahman hurled at the former Pahang mentri besar, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakub, centred on alienating forest reserves. Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin is a wealthy man today becasue as mentri besar of Johore, such opportunities as alienating forest reserves came his way. One mentri besar of Perak, the father of the present, became so wealthy that the sultan, as in Johore against Tan Sri Muhiyuddin, rebelled. He went on to become Malaysia's ambassador to the then United Arab Republic, now Egypt. As the former mentri besar of Trengganu, Tan Sri Wan Mokhtar Ahmad, is now ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Other toothless UMNO rottweillers, including the chief of the Foundation of the Movers of the Vision (Yayasan Pengerak Wawasan), Tan Sri Dr Rahim Tamby Chik, were in no doubt anti-government miscreants in and out of government burnt it to prevent the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, addressing a conference there the next day. UMNO vice president and federal cabinet minister, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, said the fire showed student fanaticism and narrow-mindedness. They have not apologised, as they should.

The UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, is "confident" of the MCA's leaders' wisdom. No doubt he is. Two UMNO vice presidents, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin and Tan Sri Mohamed Taib, are equally confident the MCA would rise above this kerfuffle and emerge victorious. No Chinese leader of any note have welcomed the EGM decision to approve the MCA purchase of Nanyang Press. Indeed, a few groups have excoriated it.

The Badawi faction has on its side one vice-president, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, and one stormy petrel, Dato' Shahrir Samad, a former cabinet minister long at loggerheads with the Prime Minister. The other vice-president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, the defence minister, is out of the loop and moves towards the Razaleigh faction.

A vice president, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, and his team of constitutional reviewers went about the country to seek views and help, but returned, remarkably, with proposals the national UMNO leaders had wanted. One would have elections once every parliament and held a year after, than triennially. Another allows members to contest for even the highest office on joining UMNO. A third calls on all members to register to vote; but the threat to bar them from party posts, once touted as proof of its democratic values, is not. The Puteri Wing, a junior Wanita, adds another layer of bureaucracy into an unwieldy organisation: it pits the two women's wings against each other, is to attract younger, professional women who would otherwise stay away.

UMNO decided to amend the constitution after its poor showing in the November 1999 general election, when the Malay ground slipped from under the National Front although it was returned with four-fifths of the seats in Parliament. A vice-president, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, discussed what was to change with the UMNO divisions, but cracks appeared soon enough.

UMNO'S EXTRAORDINARY general meeting next week (18 Nov 00) to amend its constitution is its last chance to return to the Malay cultural heartland, its power base. But it would not. The amendments isolate moribund and decaying oligarchic leaders. forcing UMNO and its members further into its arrogant, self-induced impotence which cannot be cured even with political Viagra. The UMNO vice president, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, and his team toured the country for proposals how to strengthen UMNO. But the UMNO supreme council rejected the one significant proposal it brought back from the bondooks: that the President be elected not by the 2,000 delegates but by the office-bearers of the branches and divisions -- all 30,000 of them. The party leaders, they believe, only wanted reassurance that what they proposed is what the ground wanted. The UMNO rank-and-file do not care what happens now.

An UMNO vice-president, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, and his nine-man committee, sought consensus when they discussed the changes with the divisions. They would not consider drastic measures to bring UMNO back into the Malay mainstream. Nor cut through Malay disinterest and oligarchic self-preservation. Their proposals, in short, ensure UMNO's irrelevance than its strength. Their brief was to make UMNO relevant to the younger generation. To do that, they had to cut through the political waffle and appeal directly to the youth. They did not. The roadshow missed the woods for the trees, with UMNO none the wiser.

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