It is the cabinet that orders what should be the preserve of a junior officer. But it is common in Malaysia to go the cabinet for a decision because the party involved can be UMNO or any party in the National Front. The civil servant may not want to take a decision on the company that would cause him endless difficulty later on, and so he passes it up the ladder until it lands on the cabinet. The Prime Minister is responsible for too many portfolios and UMNO, falls asleep at meetings, is late for meetings, does not keep up his paperwork, and cannot handle the matters referred to him. He also sleeps a lot if what happened to Tun Mahathir is typical. Tun Mahathir wanted to meet him and arrived half a hour before the appointment. Several hours passed. When he enquired, he was told, embarassedly, that that Pak Lah was still asleep at home! And the Prime Minister takes new responsibilities. Tun Mahathir works before and after work clearning up his paperwork. He does this after work because his day in office is spent mostly in meetings. He laft Pak Lah a clean slate, but would Pak Lah to his successor?

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.

The cabinet told her to 'face the music' in Parliament. She kept telling to all who would listen, especially the Bernama news agency, that she was on 'important' business overseas, that she was representing the country, and by inference Parliament could wait. But Parliament was also part of the nation, and an MP elected, as she is, has her first priority to attending its sessions. She took care of the Pak Lah cabinet by giving APs to members of it so that if she were investigated, so would they. Pak Lah and his advisers decided that Datin Rafidah should face Parliament on the AP issue, knowing fully well that the National Front had the majority in Parliament. The NF MPs were told to clear her. But the two MPs who voted against her is indicative of the problems within the Front. The government and cabinet cannot be made of the NF leaders, and once appointed, do as they like. Which is how the NF government and cabinet runs. Datin Seri Rafidah problem in Parliament, and her rantings afterwards, only highlighted this. Approved permits, contrary to what Datin Seri Rafidah now says, is given to 'important' people in the NF. It is not available to you and me. The APs are one way that 'us' and 'them' are kept apart in NF and its main party, UMNO.

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.

But it has got the Indonesian government on its side. President Yudhoyono and others have parroted the West's official version that the Al Qaeda or the Jemayah Islamiyah are involved in the Bali bombing. But the people, even those who watch CNN or BBC assiduously, do not believe it and begin to ask questions. President Yudhoyono as joined President Musharaff and, let us not forget, Pak Lah in Malaysia, are Muslim leaders in the forefront of anti-Muslim terror and prepared to work with the West against its own people. I do not agree with the current trend of turning people into Muslims, while ignoring their racial backgrounds, but I can see why it is done: the Muslims find comfort in a world religion, brought about by the events of 9/11. It is a direct reaction to the West's crusade against the Muslims. Today, Turkey will decide if it becomes a member of the European Union. Its foreign minister will not go to Brussels for the negotiations if it can only join the EU as a subsidiary state or as a junior state that would allow its poor to work in the EU. Supercilious talking heads have looked upon Turkey joining the EU as a moderate Muslim ally. But several countries in the EU are against Turkey being a member. But there are already Muslims in the EU, and they would also be put on hold by the decision taken today.

Datin Seri Rafidah will not resign. Nor would Tan Sri Isa Samad. So, the public attention is on the Customs and Excise Director-General, Tan Sri Halil Mutalib. But he would not resign either. He would be allowed to go on retirement as scheduled, early next month. But Tan Sri Halil should never have been in the closed service, the customs and excise department. Not only was he bought into the service from outside, he was also given an extension by former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. He looked the easiest to get rid of, but as the story unravelled, it became a fight between the present Prime Minister, Pak Lah, and the former Prime Minister. Pak Lah cannot force him to resign although he could spread the corruption bit on Tan Sri Halil and damage Tun Mahathir. But it did not work as he planned. His 'boys' had accepted favours from Datin Seri Rafidah, Tan Sri Isa Samad, and Tan Sri Halil Mutalib, and if he did not close their cases quickly he would be hurt. The public perception that he is against corruption is not true. For when he was faced with corruption in his cabinet and his civil service, he could not act for that would have moved the UMNO warlords against him, those he would rather not, and so he took the easy way out, and went after Tun Mahathir. But that backfired. For it would have affected his 'boys', and he could not afford that. The mainstream newspapers, all owned by one or other Barisan Nasional newspapers, and all beholden to the Prime Minister, all today its readers that Datin Seri Rafidah should resign, that Tan Sri Isa Samad should resign, that Tan Sri Halil Mutalib should resign. But they are all in office, will not resign, and the newspapers find creative reasons why they should remain in the jobs.

UMNO, or the UMNO Baru today, is not the nationalist political organisation that brought this country independence. UMNO that brought this country independence died in 1987, by court order, and in its place rose UMNO Baru. That UMNO Baru is formed is orchestrated by leaders of the old UMNO who led UMNO Baru. They were still in power, and they ordered the registrar of societies to declare Tengku Abdul Rahman's request for UMNO to be re-registered. He had filed the application several days earlier, but it was Tun Mahathir's UMNO Baru that was registered. As it happened, the founder of UMNO, Dato' Onn bin Jaffar, and the first UMNO president of Malaysia, and his son, the fourth president and third Malaysian prime minister, went to their graves without joining UMNO Baru. The flag of UMNO Baru is of different dimensions than of UMNO, but at first sight, they seem similar. In the Johore Bahru byelection, when UMNO Baru warlord, Dato' Shahrir Samad, stood as an independent but with strong support of the old UMNO adherents, the present Prime Minister, Pak Lah, told me at that time that when the two processions met at the crossroads before the nomination station in Johore Bahru, tears came to his eyes, for he saw two UMNO processsions where the two parties had met. It goes without saying that it was the independent who won. It is UMNO the political party that rules, and Dato' Shahir joined the party afterwards, and remains in Parliament as UMNO Baru MP. The question asked by diplomats and even UMNO bigwigs and members is whether Pak Lah would be challenged. I think he would, Dato' Shahrir Samad being the last minute candidate if the other warlords decide not to. Pak Lah is UMNO Baru president held hostage by UMNO warlords, which is why he has not sacked from his cabinet the two warlords - Dato' Isa Samad, found guilty of money politics; and Datin (or rather as she would prefer to be called, Dato') Rafidah, who was guilty of giving her son-in-law a monthly wage of about Rm 1.5 million by giving him sufficient APs. (It is said, and not in jest, that she should be known as Rafidah AP Aziz). But both will not resign from the cabinet and neither will they be sacked. They hold enormous power in their areas of strength, Isa in the Linggi area and possibly Malacca; and Datin Rafidah, in the Kuala Kangsar area that she is MP of. Fearing that either or both would go to those opposed to Pak Lah in UMNO is why they both remain in the cabinet.

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.

A scoop was what it thought it had. The newspaper was shortchanged with the announcement of his Tunship. A television station linked to the New Straits Times reported the event as "amongst those awared Tun was the chief justice of Malaysia", thus evading having to mention the other, Tun Ghazali Shafie. The RMP has its own reasons to downgrade Tun Ghazali. The prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, informed the RMP, at the spur of the moment, that he wanted to visit an address in Wangsa Baiduri. A police detail arrived minuites ahead wanting to find out whose house it was. Pak Lah arrived, kept the police out, and remained with Tun Ghazali, who is ill and in bed, in his bedroom, along for nearly an hour. The police could not understand why this should be so, why Pak Lah did not take the police into his confidence that they were kept aside. So his driver's report of Tun Ghazali's problem with his secretary was used by the RMP to destroy Tun Ghazali's credibility. And destroy it the RMP did. It revealed the police report, which ought to have been confidential, and the New Straits Times wrote of the incident as if it were the gospel. There is only one problem with it: He did not file a police report, all the questions he anwswered were police questions on the report he did not file.

What is the official reaction to all this? Establish a cabinet committee under the Prime Minister to study the recommendatitons. This is wrong. Pak Lah is the minister in charge of the police. He should not sit to discuss what has gone wrong in his ministry. He is already overloaded. He cannot cope. Nothing will come out of it. Or if it does, glossed over. As far as the government is concerned, the police force is in fine form because it says so. The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, throws another red herring. He could not believe – that is if you can suspend your belief reading this – a police officer could amass RM34 million. "It's a huge amount," he says irrelevantly, "let's find out a bit more on this ... as the name of the officer was never mentioned. I am sure the police will take the necessary action." The anti-corruption agency is quick off the mark to do its master's bidding. It will leave, as the tabloid press would say, no stone unturned to bring the culprit to account.

He had Pak Lah eating out of his hand. He was, and is, feted overseas. And attracts a large enough crowd to worry the BN leaders no end. All they could do is to accuse of him of ommissions and commissions in office, that he is not the saint he is made out to be but as corrupt a politician as they are. They could not challenge him head on, for they turn defensive when corruption is raised. They punch impotently into the air, in the hope the Malaysian public would not listen to Anwar.

But the system has a new lease of life. We had a makeshift 'pondok', where we met, and gossiped, before we started our rounds. Now the rukun tetangga office in Brickfields, where I live, is a gleaming structure costing a few hundred thousand ringgit to house a system that disappeared a quarter of a century ago. It serves no useful purpose, but I understand there is a minister responsible for this non-existent scheme. This will be the fate of national service. It is now used by the Pak Lah camp to put Dato' Seri Najib in a spot. Where once it was bureaucratic inertia that kept long-dead programmes on the books, today it is money. it is all about how to transfer public cash into private pockets. It is as simple as that. The BN knows it well but is accident-prone.

He is not alone. Others are as free in spending government funds for personal pleasure. There are no checks and balances. How could there be when the prime minister will not move into his official residence in Putra Jaya without an expensive refit (RM20 million is the figure bandied about). Nor the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib to where Pak Lah now lives without an equally expensive and extensive renovations. This is in sharp contrast to Malaysia's first three prime ministers, who spent far less on their official residences, adjusted for inflation, than individual cabinet ministers and mentris besar and chief ministers on their first appointment these days.

The opposition he unleased within UMNO and amongst the middle class puts Pak Lah in fear of his position. Within UMNO, the winner takes all. If they do not accept it, they are forced out or held to ransom by an mind-boggling array of legal and political actions. But Pak Lah cannot afford to. The ground rules have changed. His opponents are prepared to stand out and be counted. His chief opponent is Dato' Seri Najib, whose legitimacy comes from the middle class force Dato' Seri Anwar unleashed. He and Pak Lah are at daggers drawn. But they are pawns: Pak Lah by his own advisers and family and Dato' Seri Najib by the hidden hand of Tun Mahathir. There is talk, which aides of both deny, of a rapprochement between the Pak Lah forces and Dato' Seri Anwar's. This deep division in UMNO is all but impossible to repair.

Only a Royal Commission can correct this intelligence failure, with some sessions necessarily held in secret. Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib are at each other's political throats that the country runs on autopilot, with national secrets available to the highest bidder. The former deputy prime minister, Tun Ghafar Baba, did not mince his words in Kota Bharu over the weekend. He said since corruption is deep-rooted and widespread in BN, with hundreds millions of ringgit changing hands before a party or general elections, he proposed that cabinet and party posts be tendered and given to the highest bidder, the money paid into the Treasury. Once in office, they should tell the Anti-Corruption Agency how they came to this undeclared wealth.

A political secretary in the Ministry of Finance is appointed a director in a TNB subsidiary, which is then given a RM1.2 billion negotiated contract in Prai, which MOF approved as it must. The first finance minister is Pak Lah; the second finance minister is Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yapcob. The subsidiary, TNEC, now has the inside edge in any outsourced contracts. Other engineering companies and consortiums are furious.

Remarkably, no police reports were filed when its intentions were suspect. Why? Why did not the defence ministry, the armed forces intelligence services and others involved in national security order the ship in port until investigations were complete. It is time an official unvarnished account is made public. Pak Lah must demand heads, no matter how high. Dato' Seri Najib must explain how the Glenn Braveheart would now complete the mapping of the coast which, in his view, is why it was here? It is a serious breach of national security for him to resign. Would Pak Lah sack him if he does not? I would not bet on it. But I am prepared to be surprised!

If it does not, why did the minister make the statement in parliament? He is more than UMNO deputy youth chief, he is Pak Lah's son-in-law, a law into his own hands, the second most powerful man in government. It does not matter if he is in office or not. Recently, he and his wife, Pak Lah's daughter, called on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in Jakarta. He was honoured as a state guest, and the meeting carried live on Indonesia radio and television. Who did he represent? The Malaysian government? His father-in-law? UMNO? UMNO Youth? Who sent him there? Why was not stopped from going? Did Wisma Putra, the foreign office, know of it? Why did it not stop him?

What spoiled the homilies was the special attention, in radio, television and press reports, how policemen and women prevent riots and demonstrations. The words did not match the pictures. Neither the prime minister nor the IGP means what they say. Not when the speeches are accompanied by recruits with T-batons demonstrating to those assembled how they put down the demonstrators and justice seekers. There is a move for police on duty carry T-batons, and not the ordinary police batons, is now considered. The RMP's 198th birthday revealed not what Pak Lah and Tan Sri Bakri said but what they did not say.

Then out of the blue the home minister, Dato' Azmi Khalid, says on 17 March 2005 Malaysia will recruit 100,000 Pakistanis immediately, cutting red tape, ignoring rules and regulations, with a Pakistani agency given the franchise to recruit them. He says it is to ease the labour shortage. The agreement with Pakistan was signed on 16 May, he said, and the Pakistanis would be allowed to work whereever there are vacancies. It was a bombshell, although the first hint of it came when Pak Lah visited Islamad a few months ago. That it is announced amidst the mudslinging across the Straits of Malacca suggests it was deliberate and calculative.

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