Would the government call a general election before Dr Mahathir retires? The gratuitious comments of BN leaders gives no clue, but this sudden interest in getting ready for elections does suggest it might. That a snap election can be called is a political myth: the BN must prepare for one, it has to get the component parties to work seamlessly towards it, it cannot do that in secret, so enough hints and clues have to be given in its aim of getting its troops ready. The clearest indication of a general election this year is that the budget is to be presented to Parliament on 12 September. Normally it is in late October. The BN would not call for general election without an election budget.

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI MAHATHIR Mohamed, has decided he would step down on 31 October 2003. He has repeated it countless times since, in a moment of amnesia, he announced at the UMNO General Assembly in 2002 he would step down. There is no going back. It shocked his cronies more than any one that he would leave them in the lurch. Who would look after them without him? He had doubts if he had done the right thing. But he could not retract. But hope springs eternal in the human breat. In the past year, his cronies, those who stand to lose the most if he is not at the helm, thought they had found creative ways to keep him in office so they could plunder at will. To no avail. Those who stand to benefit the most with him gone would not allow that.

Individual parties do what they like. Whether they get away with it depends on whether UMNO is weak or not. UMNO is now week. UMNO is now weak. Its president, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, steps down on 31 October 2003, and intends to hold office until the last possible minute, on the stroke of midnight on that day. His successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is on notice that if he behaves as Prime Minister before his time, he could yet be a deputy prime minister who never made it. When Dr Mahathir should now be counting the days before his retirement, and let Pak Lah take over in all but name, he shows he has no such intention. He is now frightened of the prospect of UMNO losing its marbles when he leaves. A crazy group of his cronies believe he must be allowed to remain in office, mainly because they feel, quite rightly, the gravy train will stop when he leaves.

Who said there would be? Why does he say it? Comments like this, often unthinkingly and on the cuff (though yesterday's appears to be anything but) frightens investors and the like. He is part of the Mahathir team, and he inherits it after Dr Mahathir retires in October. When he tells Malaysians there would be no political and economic upheaval, one wonders if he is from the same UMNO team. His reassurances suggest the Opposition has taken over, and the need to reassure foreign investors it is business as usual.

The government would not accept it, but it must address it. The release of the Reformasi 6 is one more evidence of that. UMNO destroys itself from within, a direct consequence of its president's injustice to the deputy president. The succession is in doubt although Dato' Seri Abdullah Badawi will succeed Dr Mahathir in October. The Anwar hurt energised the Malay community, and today many cabinet ministers and UMNO MPs dare not even visit their constituencies.

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI MAHATHIR Mohamed is, he believes, a much misunderstood man. He wants to resign, but many in UMNO and Malaysia not only disbelieve him but some, God forbid, even want him to resign well before his October 31 retirement. And he does not know why. So, in his opening address at the Malaysian Indian Congress convention yesterday (10 May 2003), he tells the delegates, in injured innocence, "I do not know why. Some say that I should go now ... they do not believe that I will step down in October." But these fellows have never supported him any. "They are always ready to be suspicious of me and have never been supportive of me anyway." All this, he reiterated, is needless speculation. He stands by what he said in July last year: He leaves in October after the OIC summit. He would not lead the National Front (BN) into the general election, now widely expected early next year.

So, is Dr Ong acting for powerful Malaysian political and commercial interests? Why are RAM and LOFSA so defensive about CiBT? To help some launder their money for they know that their future is moot after Dr Mahathir's retirement in October? More questions would arise if a definitive answer is not forthcoming of Dr Ong's source of funds. Or has this come to the surface in this belief that no one dares challenge anyone like Dr Ong because he is protected by the rich and powerful. And convinced when push comes to shove, even RAM and LOFSA would care not for their reputation, such as it is, and do what is demanded of them. It gets murkier by the day.

THE COURT OF APPEAL COULD NOT but dismiss the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's appeal this month against his conviction for sodomy, as against his adopted brother, Mr Sukma Dermawan's. His supporters, and others, including international and national human rights bodies and NGO's are incensed at the injustice of it all. The government is pleased with it, but cannot, as in times past, welcome it. The Court of Appeal had no choice but to make a mess of it. It is his luck that the appeal came amidst a regime change in Malaysia, in which the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, leaves office in October under a cloud, and Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi succeeds him to an uncertain throne.

Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, is on two months leave, his last as Prime Minister. He must leave office in October but he does not want to let go. He clings to the trappings of office and uses the executive jet, a souped-up and extensively modified Global Express private jet that is the ultimate in luxury and gadgetry and cost a mere US$60 million (RM240 million at today's prices), as one would a taxi. So he rushes back from Argentina, where he is on a horse-riding holiday, to do the honours at the Petronas Grand Prix, chairs the UMNO Supreme Council, and spearheads and anti-war motion in Parliament. He is on leave. So why? The acting Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, asked him to. Why? If he did not, he could go the way of his three immediate predecessors. He knows only too well, as deputy prime minister, there's many a slip 'betwixt the cup and the lip. He would dance naked in the streets if that is what Dr Mahathir now wants. That reflects not on Pak Lah but on Dr Mahathir.

THE MALAYSIAN CHINESE ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT, DATO Seri Ling Liong Sik, will not let well enough alone. The clock ticks for his departure. But he is, like party strongmen in Malaysian politics, reluctant to leave until his men are ensconced in high party positions. That is difficult. His future is linked to that of the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed. And the good doctor retires in October. Be that as it may, Dr Ling believes, like a cancer, he would have a life of his own after that. It does not matter that the next prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, would want a new MCA leader in the cabinet. Dr Ling hopes, against hope, that Pak Lah would be challenged by his friend, the Hermit of Langgak Golf aka Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. If that is his calculation, he makes too many unsustainable assumptions: that the Hermit, if he challenges Pak Lah for the UMNO presidency next year, he would defeat him; that the Hermit would agree to him continuing in office; that the old friendship gives him a new lease of life.

LAST WEEK, THE UMNO MANAGEMENT committee decided the General Assembly in June should be in October to give its President and Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, a fitting send off into retirement. The UMNO information chief, Tan Sri Megat Junid Ayob, announced it. On Sunday (16 Feb), the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, said it would be discussed in the Supreme Council at its next meeting. On Monday, Dr Mahathir would not hear of it, said it be in June. Since the UMNO management committee is senior party officials chaired by the deputy president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on first glance it would reveal a deep split in UMNO between King and Dauphin. So it was believed. Dr Mahathir has bluntly told Pak Lah he still calls the shots. He should have been consulted of any change. And other fanciful versions suggest an ascerbic confrontation.

He is upset Qatar would not hold an informal OIC summit from amongst NAM mebers to discuss Iraq. Why should it be Qatar? Why not Malaysia? Especially since Malaysia would host the next OIC summit in October. But Dr Mahathir wanted to make a point that does neither NAM nor OIC any good. If he thought it reprehensible about US-UK-Australian plans to attack Iraq, he should have taken the lead in NAM for a strident resolution against the war plans. Why should it be the OIC? Is not Iraq a member of NAM? Should Iraq be a Muslim nation before OIC would be involved? Iraq is not attacked because it is a Muslim country, but because the Anglo-Saxon coalition wants its oil. When Muslim nations support only Muslim countries, they lose the support of others who see the problem in non-religious terms. The toothlessness Dr Mahathir talks of is there precisely because the numerous talking shops narrow the areas of their concern, with its members prepared to make deals with whoever is the top dog elsewhere in the world.

He sent in his undated resignation letter two days after Universiti Tengku Abdul Rahman was launched on 13 August 2002. He stayed on, wanting to be around for the ground-breaking of its campus in Kampar on 12 January. But Dr Mahathir, after the recent BN supreme council meeting, said Dr Ling had submitted his resignation, and the MCA deputy president, Dato' Lim Ah Lek, said he would challenge Dr Ling for the MCA presidency in 2005, Dr Ling's options ran out. When the business man, Dato' Soh Chee Wen, whose former business parter is Dr Ling's son, on trial for offences connected with the abrupt rise (and fall) of Dr Ling's son, Ling Hee Leong, his days were numbered. His time began to run out, when the MCA-owned Nanyang Siang Pau newspaper reported in October that his visit to China and India was his last before he retired. But Dr Ling believes he can force Dr Mahathir to let him remain.

This cannot be: A foreign military aircraft dropped paratroopers in the middle of the night during a routine Malaysian land, naval and air exercise -- "Operation Pahlawan Gong Kedah" -- on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia late in October. The surveillance radar, not part of the exercise, noted it but did not, as it would have, bring it to the notice of higher authority until the next morning. It was assumed to be as part of the exercise. It was not. No aircraft had taken off after 11 pm the previous night. Now everyone scrambles. This is not the first time this has happened, though in the charged atmosphere of the War on Terror, it frightens the defence ministry no end. What frightens even more is that Malaysia's air defence system did not detect it. Why? The civilian radar system did not either. Why? Was this a deliberate attempt to test Malaysia's aerial surveillance? Or is it something more sinister?

Dr Lim was to have gone on leave in September. He postponed it to October, which he moved to November because of a Barisan Nasional meeting. He goes now so he would be out of the country when the Soh Chee Wen trial opens next week. There was a clear deadline that he should resign from the cabinet before the trial starts, or he could well be implicated in it. Dato' Soh Chee Wen was his nominee on the MCA presidential council, and helped his son acquire debts of more than RM1.2 billion. They fell out, and when police wanted to interview him, he fled overseas. He returned to face trial, feted by the media and all and sundry, the inference being that he was to blacken Dr Ling's name at the trial as much as he could. But Dr Ling got a reprieve because Dr Mahathir needed Chinese support in the coming general elections, and he need Dr Ling to drum it up for him. He won this battle to stay on and defeat his deputy, Dato' Seri Lim Ah Lek. But he fell foul of Dr Mahathir over the teaching of science and mathematics in English in Chinese schools. He became expendable once more.

This raises another important issue: Dr Mahathir's claim that Malaysia is an Islamic state. Did the MCA and Gerakan accept it? At an MCA forum on this last October, a gulf appeared Dr Ling's perception of Dr Malaysia's Islamic state and the MCA central executive committee, and it began with the translation of "Negara Islam", translated in English as "Islamic country". There is a world of difference between "Negara Islam", which connotes only a theocratic state to the Muslim, and an Islamic country, which means to the non-Malay a state with more Islams in it. It is incumbent on MCA, MCA and other non-Malay parties in the BN to state their stand on this unequivocally. For it now become clear that much of what is the BN's view of anything is either UMNO's, or the Prime Minister's, exclusively, and introduced without consulting..

Dr Mahathir demands a shot-gun political marriage he could not enforce. Abdullah knows this, but he cannot confront without an open breach. He says he would announce his putative deputy prime minister after the Pendang and Anak Bukit bye-elections on 18 July. Why should he? Dr Mahathir remains Prime Minister till October 2003. If he were to annoint his deputy so early, he loses ground no matter whom he decides upon. If he names Najib, his rift with his new deputy intensifies. He becomes known as one beholden to Dr Mahathir and be seen, inevitably, as a weak leader. If he names Muhiyuddin or any one else, he defies Dr Mahathir, and the UMNO infighting continues with a vengeance. Abdullah is damned whoever he appoints. And if it is anyone than Najib, Dr Mahathir's days in office are numbered.

Malay feudal tradition is brutal to a leader who strays from it -- as Dr Mahathir so deliberately has -- and the national sandiwara is to regard him as rare porcelain while political regicide is plotted. Few understand that, whatever UMNO leaders might say in praise, he slips irrevocably into political irrelevance, if not oblivion. His scheduled retirement, in October 2003, adds to his difficulties.

He was almost blabbering when he was escorted out of the podium to an antechamber. He has not been heard of or seen since. He is not one to run away from a fight. He slinked away into the night, and to Europe the next morning for a Meditteranean cruise. Every word he has said is through the deputy president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. And his fate is now in the hands of the UMNO supreme council. It has decided he would stay on until the OIC summit in October 2003. Power had shifted away from him.

The Prime Minister's tragedy is he has less than a handful of this kind and too many of the other. Should a fairy godmother grant Dato' Phang his wish, expressed through his four-year-old son, which crony would he turn out to be? Besides, he had better get her quickly. The Prime Minister would now retire, so we are told, in October next year. A Prime Minister with a short shelf-life is a lame-duck. Can a lame-duck provide riches beyond greed to a grateful crony? The odds are against it. Dato' Phang has completed his alloted 15 minutes of fame. Whatever else the new Prime Minister would take over from Dr Mahathir, the cronies are not one item.

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