THE GRAVE HAS BEEN DUG at the National Mosque, and those who went to the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur were told it is for the former deputy prime minister, Tun Ghafar Baba, now in Pantai hospital where is undergoing medical treatment. He is weak. He has been out of ICU for about ten days, and looks poorly. He may not survive his stay in hospital, as Tun Razak did not in a London hospital, but the officials have decided he would not return from hospital alive. But the grave. ghoulishly, had to be dug three times because the length of the grave each time not correct. The National Mosque has graves for six who laboured for Malaysian independence. The former deputy prime minister, Tun Ismail bin Abdul Rahman, was first, followed by the two prime ministers, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein and Tun Hussein Onn. The man who should be there and the first prime minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, a member of the Kedah royal family, decided before this death that he would be buried at the royal family masouleum there. Another man, Dato' Sir Onn bin Jaffar, is not counted by the officials, and died a lonely death because he was in the Opposition. His son, Tun Hussein Onn became prime minister, and his grandson, Dato' Hiihamudin, sits in the present cabinet. But Dato' Sir Onn, who was related to the Johore royal family, is buried at the royal masouleum in Johore Bahru.

But the European Union members cannot live without cheap labour from Turkey. It needs Turkey and other Muslim nations to provide that. The most European of the Muslim states in the Middle East is Turkey, and so taking it as a member will solve all its problems. So it thinks. There is much Opposition to it in Turkey as there is in Europe. The more historical members of the European Union remember that Turkey came into Europe by conquest, and its entry into the European by invitation would be by peaceful means. But the US wants Turkey in the European Union and the civil code requires Turkey be equally treated as all other European nations. Now that Turkey is rejected, the Turks who have settled in Europe, or those who had gone there in search of jobs, would be the next boiling point. Just as the United States take on the world as its oyster, so does Islam. More trouble is in store. It is already difficult for a citizen of a Muslim country. The United States will end the global war of terror soon for it hurts their institutions which survive on the Muslims. The war on terror is one thing, their institutions another. But having started the war, it cannot end it unilaterally. It has to sign a peace treaty where he must state the reasons for ending it. Islam will then have won again.

The United States had the information war in its favour in Vietnam in the early stages. But it was the Vietcong and Vietminh who won. There was also discussion in Washington over whether the Vietminh controlled the Vietcong. It did not matter. Both were on the same side fighting the Americans and their cohorts. It was the only fight by proxies when the two giants of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union, got involved in a fight. But the United States was not satisfied with proxy fighting, it wanted to, and got involved, in the fighting. South Vietnam was lost to North Vietnam. The Americans claim they won because they do business with Vietnam. But if business was the aim, they could have done it without losing a war. They have treated the war in Afghanistan as another war on terror. But it is bogged down there, as the Soviet Union was and the British before that. They happen to be Muslims, and so it is a war of terror. Whatever it says, it is bogged down in Afghanistan. To leave would be as dangerous as staying. The advisers in Washington have seen Iraq as similar to Afghanistan because Islam is the dominant religion. But as the Pakistani civil servant would tell you, it cannot rule the North West Frontier and the remote areas it look when it set the line of control in the dispute over Kashmir. There are periods when a strong government in Islamabad can estabish control in these areas, as President Ayub Khan, himself a Pathan from the North West Frontier, could. The Pathans have ruled in Afghanistan for about 150 years, and there is relative calm now because a Pathan is the West's blued eye boy President. But he still cannot leave his official residence without an escort, or leave Kabul by road. The Pathans – the Taliban (literally, the student) are from this group – will be an Opposition if any group that it likes comes into power. The Taliban came to power in Afghanistan because the people it disliked, who were traditionally gardeners and cooks, came to power. Hamid Karzai is not only a Pathan, but from the ruling class, of the Populzai tribe. The United States probably did not chose him for his tribal connections, but the country is peaceful for who he is.

THE HEALTH MINISTER, DATO' Chua Soi Lek, is the latest buffoon in the Malaysian cabinet. He says statements he does not believe in or mean, and blames others for the state of affairs for which the National Front government, of which he is a member, is responsible. He blames government scholars, especially in medicine, for staying put in their country of study after graduation. Does he really mean that? Those on government scholarship has to have a gurantor, usually the father or a blood relative. Instead of saying how many Malaysians are staying put overseas, why does he not tell us how he has made guarantors pay, or how much he has collected, or how many doctors have been excused from working in Malaysia? Why does Eire give leave of absence for up to two years, doctors returning home after studying at Malaysian government expense. Most of these scholarship or bursary holders are Malay, usually those in the lower category, and the government would only ask them to pay only if the guarantor is in the Opposition party, usually PAS. How can the National Front ask Malay guarantors to pay what they had promised to do if their chap who got the guarantee does not return? Especially when the Malay ground is, at the moment, split three ways. It is UMNO which runs the National Front, and what UMNO says goes.

IF THE MAYOR HAS been defamed in a book, he should have taken the author to court. Instead, the police showed they could do as they liked, decided that defamining the mayor was a threat to national security, began investigating two senior City Hall officials and the author, and jailed them for about a week - like common criminals. They should have done so after the mayor has won his action in court, if he dared take it. Even then, the police acting, as they have done, is illegal. They were illegal in arresting the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and the criminal case against him, for which he spent time in jail, is illegal. The then Inspector General of Police, no less, have apologised for beating him up and so have several people. Unless of course the government tells us clearly, and passes the required legislation, that it is an offence to defame either politicians or civil servants. That law would create problems on the ground, where it would be resisted, rightly. But because of the government in full control, with no Opposition in sight, it do as it liked. The mayor is attacked because although he is a favoured civil servant, he should not have been appointed. The government is trying to cut dissent in the civil service, and uses the police to stop it. The book, in Malay, which upset the government writes of the newly appointed mayor's sexual affairs. He has not denied the allegations. Nor has he filed a defamation suit against the author of the book. So, who authorised the police to act as it did? Pak Lah must act against these man who lodged the police report, and the police for having harassed the author and the two senior City Hall officers. Since he is responsible for what happens in the government, he must take responsibility. He cannot act as his predecessor, Tun Mahathir, by repeating the allegations after he refuses to prove the allegations in the Anwar Ibrahim trials. He is now facing a defamation action by Dato' Seri Anwar for repeating the sodomy allegation after he has been cleared by the courts. But has he been investigated by the police? Why not? Is he lower in rank than the mayor of City Hall? Pak Lah cannot act as he pleases. He should have had the police investigate the former prime minister. What has not the police treated him as he treated the author and the senior City Hall officials?

The Malaysian Chinese Association was formed in 1949 by the Koumintang members as an Opposition to the Malayan Communist Party, also with British help for the Emergency was the direct result of Britain ignoring communists after the Second World War after it had sought its aid in defeating the Japanese during Second World War. Chin Peng after all got the OBE (later withdrawn) and would have marched in the Victory Parade in London after the War. Chin Peng was born in Dindings, a British territory and therefore a British subject, and would be Malaysian once he steps foot in Malaysia. That is his present case all about. The Malaysian government is preventing him from attending the law case. Having built the case that it is they who brought independence to this country, they want to remove those who had a better claim. But that is another story. The first leaders of the MCA were Koumintang Army leaders. A cabinet minister who later became governor of Malacca, Mr Leong Yew Koh, was a major general; its first minister of finance, Tun H.S. Lee, was a colonel; Dr Ling Chong Eu, the leader of the Radical Party, and joined the MCA in 1952, was a colonel doctor in the Koumintang and was doctor-in- attendance to Mr Chou En-law during the peace talks in China in 1946. But the MCA then was divided by states according to when the members came from. Tun Tan Cheng Lock, who was a member of the Malayan Anti- Japanese Leage, was its first president, but did not enter the cabinet on independence because his rival,Tun H.S. Lee, from Selangor, was in. As it is today though by personalities not states. The MCA had no independence in mind, and it did not prevent Tun Tan from being a member of the Independence of Malaya Party which Dato' Onn formed. His son, Tun Tan Siew Sin, joined the Malaysian cabinet first as minister of trade and industry and later as finance minister. MCA was a party of money, and UMNO owed it so much money that it was allowed to run a lottery and collect the money, which it did. It does not run a lottery now. The licence was revoked, whatever the official reason, once the MCA got back its loan. Its members clung on to power so that the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, a Chinese party nominally with multiracial members, was invited in to the National Front in 1973; it was in the Opposition then and had won Penang in the 1969 general elections.

The dictator in Iraq, Saddam Hussein or the United States, is brutual, a mirror image, if you like, of the Muslim and the Christian on the ground. The people of Iraq, having only known dictators for 80 years, will vote what the dictator of the day wants. He knows no free election, and the rhetoric of one cuts no ice with him. To go against the referendum, two thirds must vote "no". No where else is this required. Not in the best of times. But is not the constituition a failure when it did not get two thirds in any province? Or in Iraq? The constitution is a failure. The United States knows it. The Sunnis are not part of the original constition-drawing committee. The Americans decided to invite non-elected Sunnis favourable, That does not ensure Sunni representation. When the United States lays great store in elections, an appointed Sunni joins the team subject to severe conditions. The non-elected member of parliament in Singapore is subjected to restrictions, but his presence in parliament gives the ruling Peoples Action Party credit for it is seen in public that it is not in full control of state and institution, which in fact it is. In Malaysia there is no such deviousness. The forms are followed, but the laws are made so that the Opposition has no chance. It adopts the Opposition, something the United States is trying to do in Iraq. Like the United States in Iraq. The Sunni, the powerhouse in Iraq for 80 years, knows he will not return, so he will destroy the country. No amount of paperwork, or misreading history, both of Iraq and the United States, will change the situation. Bringing an federation into Iraq could mean its breakup. Saddam Hussein ruled with an iron hand, and kept sectarian divisions under control. But the United States allowed it. It has lost the propaganda war, for its reasons for invading Iraq has been found false.

Despite what those in power say, the ability to govern is not one of them. When UMNO took office in elections in 1955, everyone in power was inexperienced. They mananged. Today they are in power. To use the argument that they alone have the right to rule is unjustified. They know it in their hearts that it is wrong, but they say it nevertheless, for that is how they stay in power. UMNO or rather the National Front remains in power because the Opposition is fractured. Those who leave the party to the Opposition do not mount a challenge that will shake the National Front. Until Dato' Seri Anwar arrived on the scene. I do not think he can return to UMNO in the coming years. The last I heard is that he will head a Opposition coalition to UMNO. He draws great crowds, is well in Middle Eastern governments, has the charisma of leaders and could well make a non-UMNO prime minister. He is the first politician to be a credible leader who can defeat UMNO. He does not have a political party yet, but he would get one when his legal disability to take part in politics disappears in 2008. He can ask for a pardon, but he would not since he says he is innocent of the charges for which he spent years in jail.

PAK LAH HAS NOT RESHUFFLED his cabinet since he took office in 2003. He had said the cabinet ministers are appointed by the King and loss of positions, or rejection, by the party is irrelevant and is no cause to resign from his cabinet. He leaves it to the good sense of ministers to resign. He has extended this to deputy ministers, and applied this rules to parties other than UMNO in the National Front. It is a sign there is one rule for the rulers and one for the ruled. But there is another reason. His cabinet is composed of warlords, in UMNO or other members of the National Front. Two warlords have refused to resign. The UMNO wanita leader, Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, has refused to resign after her role in issuing APs became a national scandal. Pak Lah dared not ask her to resign, for fear that Datin Seri Rafidah would point out the APs given to his relatives and supporters. She gave APs to Pak Lah's relatives and supporters to secure her position in the Pak Lah cabinet. Pak Lah had to shut up, and the cabinet had ordered her to answer the APs matter in parliament. Newspapers, which once were against her now eat out of her hand. If she were sacked, she could go into the Opposition in UMNO against Pak Lah. This is the reason why he has not reshuffled his cabinet. The warlords may go into the Opposition to him. Dato' Isa Samad, the federal territories minister, is a warlord from Negri Sembilan. He was ousted from Negri Sembilan at the behest of Pak Lah's son-in-law, and UMNO obliged. But it is not that easy. Now the UMNO Supreme Council, headed by Pak Lah, has confirmend it. Dato' Isa comes from Linggi, where Adat Temenggong rules. By removing Dato' Isa from the cabinet, Pak Lah will have removed the Adat Temenggong and that could be disasterous in the 2007 UMNO presidential elections. Pak Lah does not have any moral scruples in this matter, and that is why his opponents are in strong position in UMNO.

Statements from Washington and London suggest that it is the crusades all over again. President Bush has told Palestinians that God told him to invade Iraq. He seems to be finding creative reasons for the mess the United States created in Iraq. But it would not wash. The Muslim, particularly the Sunni, now takes the United States and the West as their enemy. Islam is not what the Christian nations of its supporters, like Malaysian or Pakistani leader, say it is. Islam today is the religion of the street, and with a mind of its own. Otherwise, President Bush would have such Opposition in Iraq, with outside Sunni Muslims coming in to fight. The US and its supporters are trying to get Muslim leaders to go on the bandwagon, but the Muslim street in these countries refuse to do so. They try to get Muslim leaders on their side, like in Indonesia, but the president does not want Jemayah Islamiyah banned, as the Western countries would like it to. Enough in the government there are not certain it should be. Islam in Indonesia is much more gentle, but the Indonesian street, although still not as extreme as elsewhere, is becoming more extremist as Bush and his supporters around the world blame Islam and the Muslim for much of their problems. The fact is that President Bush and his supporters have turned Islam into an extremist organisation, and since there are 2 million of its believers, a quarter taking the law into their hands spell danger for President Bush's plan.

PARLIAMENT HAS BECOME A charade. The MPs from the ruling National Front are not given a free vote in the Rafidah Aziz affair. The two NF MPs who voted with the Opposition in referring Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz to the Committee of Privileges comes up for mention in newspaper reports and in Paliament as if they had done something terrible. It now seems the National Front never had any intention to put Rafidah Aziz through the hoop. She knows it, and almost every NF MP knows it. The result was predictable, although Parliament was allegedly given a free hand by the NF. The NF's majority in Parliament would see, as it turned out, that Datin Seri Rafidah would get into no trouble. And indeed she did not. She is in the New Straits Times today (6 October 2005) talking about her role in nation building, and that she viewed her international role more important than turning up in Parliament. Parliament is not important, she avers in the interview with New Straits Times. The leader of the Opposition, Mr Lim Kit Siang, is irrelevant, so his questions are less important than the Cabinet's. But in the Parliamentary system of government in force, it is more important than the cabinet. Tun Mahathir used to have cabinet meetings in Parliament. He at least paid lip service to the primacy of Parliament. The Natioanl Front does not. There is pressure on the National Front to penalise the two MPs who voted with the Opposition. And there is a collective sigh of relief that she is scot free. That was only possible by the massive majority the NF has in Parliament.

What we see in Iraq is Vietnam redux. What was once a clash between capitalism and communism is today between Christianity and Islam. But the thinking of the Cold War is superimposed on it. Generals fight their wars tomorrow by what they learnt yesterday. They do not have to think afresh. But his opponents fight the war in Iraq with nationalism and religion, powerful rallying points, and the fact that the country has been invaded, and they are sitting pretty, while the generals just invade the country at the behest of the politicians. Since this is also an information war, we do not hear much of what the Opposition, the insurgent, does. But, as the Vietnamese showed, it does not matter. This time, in Iraq, the street view is broadcast by Al Jazeera, which became even closer to the Arab street by supporting one of its reporters who has gone to jail in Madrid for interviewing Osama bin Laden. We are now told that all journalists the West has in Iraq do not report as they see fit, but only report what the West want it to report. It is us versus them all over again. And it is them that will wil the war in Iraq. That is why Abu Musab's twelve top lieutenants being killed, as the US generals say, has no effect on the war in Iraq.

In Malaysia, a similiar sort of control as in Iraq is in place. You are expected to believe the Prime Minister, Pak Lah, or his government, and forget the discordant voices. Pak Lah supports the United States in Iraq, and the people of Malaysia are expected to do so too. Discordant voices, except in UMNO, the ruling party, is not published in the mainstream newspapers. But the government has taken the Islamic route for which it cannot back off. It has turned Thai Malays into Thai Muslims, and calls its majority community as Muslims not Malays, though if you are both you are given a privileged place. The West has Malaysia in its pocket, but the people are not with it. And the government, with or without Western blessings, would not want to find out. This happens when a country is dubbed pro-West by Westerners because the government is pro-West. But there is a discordant political voice in the country, the Islamicists. The National Front, which governs the country and 12 of the 13 states, follows the national trend, believing as gospel what UMNO thinks. The Islamicists control one of Malaysia's 13 states, but it is disorganised now. UMNO has dubbed itself an Islamic party, but it cannot be one. It can push Islam as a political agenda but it will have to convince Islamicists that it will be an Islamic ruler as well. UMNO is caught in a transition, as PAS is, and Pak Lah is not confident of himself to lead UMNO as a president should. He is an accidental Prime Minister at a time when the UMNO warlords are showing their mettle. He could not remove from the cabinet those he should. In fact, he has not had a cabinet reshuffle since he took office, although it is time he did. He is afraid that those he drops would join his oppents. He is watched like a hawk, especially among the rank and file. And his oppenents, PAS and his predecessor as prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, and as deputy prime minister, Dato' Anwar Ibrahim. He will find he has no friends if he assumes that his word is law. And the rules made so that he has no Opposition in policies will not last. His Opposition in UMNO is severe, and those that are against him are former leaders of the party. He must find a way by which he gets ground support. He might think there is, but those who support him now support him as UMNO leader and Malaysian Prime Minister. He will be put out to dry by the ordinary UMNO member who supports him now, if he should ever be challenged.

A friend, who had retired from the civil service, and who missed his dato'ship because his boss felt it would do him credit if he had three dato'ships instead of two, told me that he went to one government department recently and he found food being prepared for the civil servants who had come for a meeting. In his day, he went for meetings but they broke off at lunch time to enable the participants to have their lunch, for which they paid. Today, lunch is paid for by the office, and meetings are held in exotic places at government expense. Civil servants in Johore Bahru would have their meetings in Langkawi. It is common for the senior officials in the civil service to spend hundreds of thousands of RM to decorate their offices, and continue spending as they climb up the civil service ladder. So Tan Sri Mutalib's farewell party is passe. What has upset him is the public scrutiny in the Barison Nasional owned mainstream press. He would have retired in the past, but he has become a pawn now between the urban Malays and the rural. The rural Malay is watching every step the urban Malay makes. And the urban Malay is nervous. The former Prime Minister started the ball rolling by accusing his deputy, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, of being a gay and removing from office. He is out of office but continues to repeat the allegation, the latest in Singapore. Dato' Seri Anwar has sued him, and this would be the clash between the urban and rural Malay, each representing one of them. Tun Mahathir finds his urban credentials and his 22 years in office disappear before his eyes, as Pak Lah flirsts with bringing Dato' Seri Anwar into UMNO. But Dato' Seri Anwar would not come into UMNO unless he is given a free pardon, for which he would not apply. But if Dato' Seri Anwar comes into UMNO, it would be to defeat Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, and in the bargain Tun Mahathir. Otherwise Dato' Seri Anwar would be in the Opposition.

Tun Mahathir has lost power and esteem in today's Malaysia, Even the senior officials do not respect him. They did not think it important that he be consulted, as adviser to Proton, that the Proton CEO, Tengku Mahaleel, had been sacked. He returned to Proton, in a huff, the cars that Proton had given him. But he had lost ground. He suffers the same fate as Mrs Indira Gandhi, who turned Congress Party the nationalist movement her father was its leader into the political party that now rules India. By so doing, she landed in jail, and was instrumental in the Congress Party the political party being in the Opposition. The Congress Party in power today is as head of a coalition. The Prime Minister is in the Upper House from Assam although he is a Sikh. Mr Junichiro Koizumi, the same position with his LDP warlords, took a chance and went to the polls, and won handsomely. He could do it because he was more popular than the party, and he threatened the warlords, with their untold electioneering campaign funds, that he would oust them from his cabinet if they did not support him. That he succeeded has reduced the power of the warlords. The Western media has made privatisation of the Post Office as the cause of the election. But he quits as leader of the LDP in 2006, that is next year. He wanted to reform the LDP, not to privatise the post office. The Japanese bureaucracy is slow moving, and the privatisation of the post office cannot be completed in a year's time. UMNO Baru is not the LDP, but Pak Lah has shot down his Barisan Nasional partners, promising those who failed in party positions the jobs they held when they were in the government in the pre-election of the party.

What did he say that upset the Western diplomats that led them to walkout of his public lecture? He catalogued the deaths of 500,000 children, the powers broke international laws about human rights and still do, British and American policies that resulted in hundred thousand deaths and more before the invasion. "The result of the invasion is that many more people have been killed than Saddam ever has been accused of. Worse still, the powers that be which were supposed to save the Iraqi people have broken international laws on human rights," he said at a public lecture organised by the government-run Human Rights Commission of Malaysia or Suhakam. And he indirectly scolded the NGO for not commenting on these breaches of human rights. The double standards were clear among the Western nations, and all kept quiet. The Opposition to the war in Iraq began in the West, but not on human rights and deaths of Iraqis, but of deaths of US and UK soldiers. It was only later, as an adjunct to the death of US and UK soldiers, that the other details of breaches of human rights regulations came about. Tun Mahathir continued: "At the time this was happening where were the people who were concerned with human rights? Did they expose the abuses of Britain and America? Did they protest against their own government? No, it is because they say the enemy are killed. That is acceptable. But their own people must not be killed. To kill them is to commit acts of terror."

This was abrogated because the Malaysian government had promised in return that Malay irredentists would not cross the border into Kelantan. But the Malaysians did not honour its promise because relatives lived across in Kelantan, and while MCP was prevented, with Thai help, to maintain a safe haven in south Thailand, Malay separatists in southern Thailand was not. I visited Betong in 1976, before the Thais abrogated the border agreemnt, and met the commanding officer of the Royal Malay Regiment, who later became director of military intelligence and a lieutenant-general, and he made no bones then and later of Malaysia's Opposition to plans to allow the MCP to settle in northern Malaysia while allowing the southern Thai Malays free access to Kelantan and beyond. This was policy at that time. I have met southern Thai separatists at the Prime Minister's Department, and in fact interviewed them. They lived with a reporter in the Berita Harian, who introduced me to them.

The minister of international trade and industry and UMNO women's wing president, Datin Serii Rafidah Aziz is the next cabinet minister proven corrupt. The mainstream newspapers and mainstream TV media have confirmed it. Which means it is true. There are other stories of cabinet ministers and others corrupt, but if the alternate media write about it, then the laws of defamation apply, and they are stopped in their tracks. One UMNO leader has said he would have sued a mainstream journalist, but would not since that fellow does not have money. In other words, money is used to bankrupt the fellow. If one the other hand, an alterate journalist seems to be winning or gets a fairer corum of jiudges, on appeal, then the case is delayed as long as possible. The cynicism extends to UMNO members who are used to defame Opposition figures. They are dropped and they are not supported in court or are not helped with the amount ordered by the courts to be paid to the Opposition figure. So, Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, like the warlord before here in the cabinet, Tan Seri Isa Samad, is banned from UMNO for corruption but will not resign nor be sacked from the Pak Lah cabinet. The Prime Minister sacks from his cabinet only those who defy him personally: Tun Ghazali Shafie, Dato' Shahrir Samad and Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, all by the then Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed.

Now this desire of the political party leaders to remain in office as long as they can, has caused the man in the street - the Malay, Chinese and Indian in West Malaysia, and the Christian, animist, Muslim in East Malaysia - to take matters in his own hands. He has asked the BN his own desires, which include a more equitable use of the 30 per cent bumiputra requirement, that the Chinese and Indian be allowed to partake in the 30 per cent bumiputra requirement, that more Chinese and Indians be allowed in the government services, the police especially, and the special requirement in place after the 1969 racial riots be dispensed with. A token is not what is needed, although the Chinese and Indian leaders may think so. In Merdeka day 2005, it is safe to predict the end of UMNO as a valid political force - if not in the next general elections, the one after that. The Chinese and Indian leaders in BN do not recognise these trends, but they have been in office for decades, and are not likely to. You can threaten potential candidates for party elections so much, but the day will come when the average man in the street will not be frightened, and bring the Opposition in. Then it will be a matter of time the BN is confined to the Opposition.

The PAS change took place peacefully. The press, radio and television reported it, hoping against hope as the muktamar wound its way to its close for the fireworks would make it worth their while. And got more media coverage than it would have otherwise. But PAS leaders had decided that unless it made its message acceptable to both Malays and non-Malays they cannot hope to attain power except by accident. They succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. And got the best press coverage it had had in decades. For at the end of the muktamar, PAS emerged into the mainstream of Malaysian politics firmly as never before, and locked horns with UMNO for Malay support and, ultimately, leadership. It accepted the principle that politics is the art of the possible, and invited the jailed former deputy prime minister and UMNO deputy president, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, to lead an Opposition coalition in the next general election, and even called for a royal pardon without which he could well have to sit out the next general election.

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