The Malaysian cabinet instructed the home minister, Dato' Azmi Khaled, to explain the Malaysian position to China on November 30, but the Chinese government was not told beforehand. The Chinese ambassador in Malaysia, Mr Wang Chung, who is in the top rung of Chinese diplomats, went to Putrajaya on Tuesday (29 November) to say that the visit is off until the Malaysian government convinces China that this manhandling will not happen again, told what his government would do that day in Beijing. Dato' Azmi Khalid reacted by going on a tirade on newspapers carrying "negative stories". But he should know that megaphone diplomacy is out in a sennsitive matter as this. In that press conference, he admitted that some of the "negative stories" came from government departments. But local newspapers did not have to carry them; but the newspapers here would have taken the cue from Bernama. If they did not, the government press officers would harass them. The Malaysian government use the newspapers as its ragsheets. PAS is given short shrift in the newspapers in the byelection in Pengkalen Pasir, while the National Front is not. The deputy UMNO youth chief is shown painting a house in Pengkalen Pasir, to tell Malaysians it should vote, but he would disappear from the area should UMNO win or lose that election. But UMNO is busy in an opposition constituency before an election. That is of course no said.

If I am a 'dangerous' person, why do people in authority see me? Most of these people see me in secret, often late at night, - for being seen with me is dangerous to their safety - and they give me information that may or may not see the light of day. I am not as active after my strokes, but I do move around if I can persuade my sons or a friend to take me around. That was how I was at Dato' Seri Sanusi Junid's, and Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's, houses for their Hari Raya gathering. The two men, who have known each other for more than 30 years, are in different camps now and cannot bear the sight of each other, but they know that what one tells me the other would not know. I do not follow the current fad of reporting what a man says. I always ask him whether I can quote him for particular views, before leaving. I did that yesterday (27 November 2005) with Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, but I did not use the quote. I am interested in what is happening, not who said what. The sources are happy to talk to me knowing that I would not quote them except with permission. Often I will not. I rarely have an interview with my sources for publication, usually a discussion.

POLICE STRIPPING CHINESE TOURISTS is the issue. The visas were valid. Not even the authorities dispute that. Because of what happened to those with valid visa, the Chinese tourists are not coming here. The New Straits Times said on 21 November 2005 said 50,000 tourists come here and disappear. That they disappear is not the issue. Neither is it that those with valid visas break the law. Instead of hunting them, legal tourists are stripped. The news has gone back. Sixty five per cent less tourists from China come here. The government of Malaysia is in a dilemma. It does not seem to know why. The tourism minister is go to China to find out. But the runaway police gives the country a bad name. But the authorities seem to be protecting the policemen in the official statements they have issued. They will probe what happened. They would not have, it seems, had not the newspapers highlighted it. It also is true that the police would not have stripped them had the tourists been Caucasian. They thought there would be no reaction. So far Pak Lah has kept quiet. The Cabinet has not said a word though it would be quick to say something if something goes wrong in a municipal council. The Chinese tourists are going elsewhere. It is costing us money as a result. But this stripping of women is not an isolated incident. A statement that this is prohibited under the law is not the response China is expecting from Malaysia.

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is a man possessed not by one ghost but two. Both are alive and restrict Pak Lah's movements. When he became prime minister in November last year, he had one living ghost to frustrate him. When he did not get the legitimacy he desired in the March general elections, he hoped he would if he stole the UMNO presidency fair and square. He did not. Instead, he is besotted with two ghosts instead of one. If he does not watch his step, a third would soon reside permanently over his head.

PARLIAMENT IS DISSOLVED, AS are all state assemblies but Sarawak's Council Negri. The National Front (BN) government had played a cat-and-mouse game with itself on when it would be called since Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became Prime Minister. The Opposition this time read the signs early and began preparations for general election in January, earlier than BN. So much so that it surprised UMNO leaders when Parliament was dissolved. The Election Commission would meet soon to decide on the polling day. The originally widely believed date of 21 March is out: on that day the second leg of the F-1 motor racing season is held in Kuala Lumpur. It would be a few days or so after that. It is Pak Lah's first general election since he became prime minister in November. He needs to do well to strengthen his chances, and cut out all opposition, when UMNO chooses its president at its annual general assembly in June.

This month, Pak Lah ordered the Royal Malaysian Police to get to the bottom of the affair. A fortnight later, it turns out that there is more to the matter than we were told. But the police now say it began its investigations on 13 November, three days after the American CIA and the British MI6 intelligence services informed its Special Branch of SCOPE's role in this trade. But it said all along, in public, it knew nothing of it, that as far as it is concerned, SCOPE is clean, and all this is a deliberate attempt to damage the fair and good name of Malaysia. In other words, the Malaysian government led Malaysians up the garden path. It stonewalled until it could no longer. The flurry of information it released on 20 February 2004 was too little too late. If it had been released judiciously over the past three months, it was would have saved Malaysia from its embarrassing public relations fiasco. When the world was scrambling for information, Malaysia would not say anything. As more details emerged, silence could not be an option. Malaysian leaders and police officers cleared themselves, and commented cynically of this attempt by the US leaders and foreign reports to sully the fair name of Malaysia, which of course failed because they got it all wrong.

Nothing changed when Pak Lah succeeded Tun Mahathir Mohamed on 01 November 2003. He says, as Tun Mahathir, he does not question the judiciary on any matter before the Court. If he believes in the independence of the judiciary as constitutional and political reality, why does he belabour the point? If it is, it is. But it is not, and gets a wider political airing than Pak Lah is comfortable with. With reason. He was at the meeting at the Putra World Trade Centre, after Dato' Seri Anwar's arrest in September 1998 and before he was appointed deputy prime minister, to destroy and humiliate his predecessor politically and personally. Tun Mahathir was not present. That is not how he operates. He is a consummate politician. He throws a stone, and lets the blame fall on others. Pak Lah's stirring words on the judiciary is more believable if he can say firmly and decisively that he was not part of the UMNO cabal that faked a videotape of Dato' Seri Anwar engaged in sodomy. Can he?

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, at last, appoints a deputy prime minister and his cabinet. After ten soul-searching weeks, he reappoints the last cabinet of his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, shifts a few portfolios around and brings in a Mahathir loyalist as second finance minister. He dropped no one, gives the cabinet deadwood a new lease of life. Is this the cabinet he wanted? No. He is forced into it. His stated plans in office are now still-born. And could be fatal to his plans to be in office after the UMNO election this year. If this is the cabinet he wanted, he could have done it within a few days of his appointment on 01 November. He is not his own man. He has sold his government lock, stock and barrel to the 'dalang' (the master puppeteer), Dr Mahathir. He cannot shake that now. It also affirms his distaste for major changes. As he did when he appointed the new UMNO division committees, he changed a few portfolios, and left the rest untouched.

THE NEW UMNO PRESIDENT, DATO' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, appointed 190 divisional leaders nine days ago (22 November 2003), ahead of the UMNO elections, so they would be in place when general election beckons. The UMNO supreme council backed him to the hilt. A "lengthy process" of "more than two months" preceded it. It is the best team in the circumstances. " We hope (UMNO) members would not object," he said, adding that "we have not done this in a cincai-cincai (lackadisical) manner." The list ensures the best for the party, "not for any individual, group or gang." While they may be the best available, they are not necessarily candidates in the general election. There will be no discussion about it. The supreme council decision is final. "We cannot please every one but we must hold on to party unity and discipline," he said.

THERE IS NOTHING SURPRISING at the immediate sacking last week (20 November 2003) of the New Straits Times Press group editor-in-chief, Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad or Dollah Kok Lanas as he is more well-known. The new UMNO president wants his own around in key positions. The NSTP is its public relations arm. Pak Lah does not want his predecessor's men around, certainly not a 'loose cannon' his aides believe Tan Sri Abdullah is. When I asked him at a diplomatic function early October, how long he had left at the NSTP. He enigmatically shrugged his shoulders. Within a month he is out. The official reason of a Saudi Arabian objection to an article he wrote about the monarchy is at best specious. The government, not UMNO, would have complained to the NSTP board. He was sacked after the UMNO management committee met. I heard of it a few hours later, in the middle of the night. Since the article appeared a week earlier, why this rush to sack a man without giving him a chance to be heard? He was in Hong Kong when he was sacked.

Let us look at what he said when he broke his Ramadhan fast with the Seremban UMNO Youth on Thursday, 20 November, 2003. Since the New Straits Times is a newspaper controlled by UMNO interests, one should accept that what it reports of the meeting is as accurate as one can get of what happened. He said PAS must first prove its sincerity by reaching a consensus with the other opposition parties on its Islamic State Document before it wants to debate it with a BN party. He presumes it would not. It would or it would not. But does that amount to insincerity? Did UMNO discuss Malaysia's declaration of an Islamic state with its BN partners? Is it not a fact that MCA, for one, was caught flatfooted, and rushed for cover when the former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, declared it?

THE NATIONAL FRONT (BN) ADMITS that dato'ships and other titles could be bought in those states it governs. The Malaysian cabinet at its weekly meeting yesterday (19 November 2003) decided to tell the rulers to behave and not rob the royal institutions of their legitimacy with this scandal. The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, would make that known to the rulers possibly at the next session of the Conference of Rulers. The virtual justice minister, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, in the issue of the week for which the BN is famous for, said that in ten of the 13 states, titles and other awards could be bought. Dato' Seri Rais, at his press conference yesterday, referred only to the rulers, when four states have Governors, all BN political worthies, and BN chief ministers. Only Penang, amongst them, is free of the sale of titles, he says. Whether this is because it is the Prime Minister's home state, and it would be politicially unwise to link it to the titles-for-sale scandal is not for me to say.

After the Anwar Ibrahim affair, UMNO found that the Malay had moved to the sidelines, prepared to vote for whoever wins. As its electoral chances declined, it declared, unilaterally and without discussing it with its coalition partners or parliamentary debate, Malaysia an Islamic state. It did not explain what and how it was one, but it was a cynical attempt to bring the debate into the Malay heartland, which is where the battle for the Malay vote is fought. The non-Malay parties in BN quietly acquiesced, atlhough none could explain what this meant in practice. BN was taking the electoral battle on PAS's terms. It was, in one sense, now a battle for the Muslim mind. UMNO and PAS differ on how an Islamic state should conduct itself. Both sides have not explained what they mean by what they say. Until PAS revealed, on 12 November 2003, what it meant by an Islamic state. The 53-page Islamic State Document or "Dokumen Negara Islam" placed on the public record of what it meant. It promised to put into law what BN would only talk of. The primacy of Muslims and Islam is guaranteed, a non-Muslim could not be Prime Minister or hold other high office, but it promises to give due consideration to non-Malays. There is nothing in the document UMNO could quarrel with - only that it makes it more difficult now for UMNO to fight for the Malay vote on an Islamic platform.

Malaysian palm oil is of a standard other nations emulate. To be now told it is not by a major purchaser puts the whole trade at risk. Since it is contaminated, it cannot be brought back. The companies that supplied it have lost hundreds of millions of ringgit. If market talk is correct, the Malaysian cabinet discussed this at its first meeting in November. If Malaysian palm oil cannot be sold because of a deliberate unilateral rewriting of the rules of international business, just as a general election beckons, and palm oil is the life blood of many a rural worker, the panic in the governing National Front (BN) is not surprising.

But this masks a larger problem: The MIC is irrelevant in the national picture as the PPP and IPF are. The UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakub, said yesterday (10 November) the Indian parties must united under the MIC, which he extols as an important vote gatherer for the BN, but little of what it has done for the community. In other words, the MIC is in the BN so it would be kept quiet and docile, allowing its leaders to enrich themselves at their members' expense, allowint it to fester in its small irrelevant pool of like-minded Indian political parties, all out to ensure what they can garner from being associated with the BN. It is not a happy picture. This irrelevant mudslinging in which the MIC comes out badly is what is wrong with the party. It addresses every slight against its leader as a major offensive, and ignores Indian issues and problems that needs urgent correction. All Dato' Samy Vellu has done in his 24 years in office is to show Malaysians how efficiently Malaysian Indians can mismanage affairs so thoroughly - the MIC's much touted and vaunted Maika Holdings Berhad is now a private company controlled by its president, but not after its Indian shareholders losts tens of millions; every MIC venture is a disasterf - that the government no longer gives the MIC first crack of projects and shares reserved for the Indian community.

The MIC organises a convention of MIC branch chairman in Shah Alam yesterday (09 November 2003) ostensibly to prepare the MIC for the general election. Twelve thousand attended, which if its president is believed, is the largest gathering of Indians in one place. It should earn a place in the Malaysian Indian book of records. But in his speech, he could not contain himself about threats to his position. He singled out the Indian Progressive Party (IPF) president, Dato' M.G. Pandithan, for nominating an editor of a Tamil newspaper opposed to Dato' Seri Samy Vellu for an award from the King. And committed a faux pas. He should not have brought His Majesty's name into a political dispute, which is what it is. The award is given only after careful vetting in the Prime Minister's Department and the Palace. Dato' Seri Samy Vellu would have been shown the list before the Prime Minister forwarded the recommendations. Why did he not object then? Or is he telling us even Dr Mahathir did not, in the end, extend him the courtesy he did have in the past?

A FEW DAYS BEFORE HE relinquished office as Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, informed his successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, that he has asked the six retiring secretaries-general of ministries to stay on for two more years. This has become the norm. The first two-year extension is followed by another of a year, and if he is still needed, is given a sinecure that sometimes allows him to stay on till 70 years and beyond. It makes nonsense of the civil service retirement age of 56, and this extension, and how it is granted, frustrates those denied promotions because of the extension. But this was the norm - and not only in the civil service - during the Mahathir epoch. And he does not see why it should not continue under his successor. Pak Lah took office as Prime Minister on 01 November 2003, a Friday, within days of his 64th birthday. The secretaries-general had their terms extended on Monday, 04 November.

But one should not blame Dato' Seri Ong for what he did. That is how the BN, and the MCA, conducts its affairs: by riding roughshod over the rules. The leaders are deemed demi-gods, one defies or challenges at one's peril. Dato' Seri Ong would have got away with it last year, when the BN and MCA presidents were in total control. He could not now. The two state assemblymen were not the innocents they are portrayed as. They were pawns in an MCA brinkmanship to wrest the chief ministership from the Gerakan in Penang. And failed disastrously. Tan Sri Koh did not look kindly to this act of rebellion, the issue that sparked it is irrelevant, and if the perpetrator of that rebellion, Dato' Seri Ong's predecessor, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, is no more, it does not mean that all is forgiven and forgotten. It is not. He took the brinkmanship a mite further to see if he could get away with it. But he misread the signals, and assumed he need not deal with those who come after Dr Mahathir retires in November.

But with general elections approaching, this suspension could not last. Instead of discussing this with the BN and doing it the proper way, the MCA Presidential Council decided on a frolic of its own: it lifted the suspension, taking everyone by surprise. It is an open secret Pak Lah and the MCA President, Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting have serious differences between them. Dato' Seri Ong believes he can force the pace because UMNO is weak, Pak Lah so weak that he cannot oppose his dictates for the damage that could cause BN. It is dangerous to assume that. Pak Lah is tested. He must act firmly. One view is that Dato' Seri Ong behaves so because he, like his predecessor, believes Dr Mahathir is with him. That could well be. But what use is that support on 01 November 2003?

Dr Mahathir, with his ingrained contempt for constitutional niceties, said this reshuffle is because, as The Star reported, "the Government needed replacements for certain posts in several ministries". Indeed. Besides, the replacements does not yet have the concurrence of the Yang Dipertuan Agung. This is a reversal from past practice, when the announcements are made only after royal concent is got. Did he seek a constitutional crisis to leave Pak Lah with a poisoned chalice? Or did he conclude that since UMNO is divided - the more UMNO leaders insist UMNO is united, the more it is not - he did not care what happened after he retired in November?

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