The federal control of the states, and of UMNO at the centre, controlling the state administrations is challenged for two reasons: the federal leadership, in government and party, is challenged by the state UMNO and the states; and threatens to subdue them with constitutional powers it does not have. Because the UMNO president's reach is challenged at every turn, he sits atop an unusually greasy pole. Pak Lah hijacked the constitution to assume control of the Bukit Cahaya agricultural park as a political ploy to remove the Mahathir-appointed Selangor chief minister from his post with an engineered crisis. That this came about because of the UMNO president's own neglect of what should not is, of course, forgotten as the crisis developed. But the state chief ministers would not have taken the law into their own hands if the federal prime minister had not for BN chief ministers and mentris besar replicate in their states what the federal UMNO president does in his domain.

Who would lead it? It is sidelined in part by its shortcomings. The former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, is still its target; it should be Pak Lah. It lost its raison d'etre when he resigned five months before last year's general elections. Indeed, the opposition parties, at a two-day retreat, six months before the poll, believed it would do far better, perhaps even capture Kedah, with him as prime minister, but to certain defeat and even annihilation if he stepped down unexpectedly. Dato' Seri Anwar, wedded to the opposition, can be a powerful catalyst to the disparate political parties and groups opposed to the National Front (BN). The reformasi movement should sort itself out to be his stormtroopers. It proved yesterday it could organise. If only it could find its way back to what it was.

Whether it would be contained, depends on who ultimately wins this battle: the UMNO president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, or his bete noir, Dato' Seri Anwar. UMNO and PAS know their fates are linked to who wins. It looks one-sided. If you read the Malaysian mainstream newspapers, it is Pak Lah who wins; to those who look at it disinterestedly, there can be no doubt it is Dato' Seri Anwar. UMNO, even Pak Lah, flounders because of him. In the six months since his unexpected release from prison last September by a court decision, Dato' Seri Anwar took centre stage in UMNO and Malaysian politics.

THE SELANGOR MENTRI BESAR, Dato' Seri Mohamed Khir Toyo, reacts as any politician when blame is laid at a his door: blame the civil servants, others, everyone else; he alone is free of blame. When the Sabah chief minister, Dato' Seri Musa Aman, is caught with his hands in the till, he brazens it out. Both are naked, even if one is backed by the prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the other not. If one goes, Pak Lah goes with him; if the other stays, Pak Lah does not. Pak Lah therefore wants Dato' Seri Musa to stay but not Dato' Seri Khir. Or that is how the UMNO president would like us to believe. The Sabah and Selangor leaders are in equal trouble. And go they must. The longer they stay, the messier their departure.

He puts on a brave front. He denied the Utusan Malaysia reports, which in his view relied on his political enemies in UMNO jealous and envious of his brilliant success as mentri besar. He insisted the forest reserve surrounding the agricultural park is intact and has suffered no ecological damage. It did not wash. Pak Lah flew over the denuded area and saw the destruction for himself, and ordered him to take "swift and severe action".

In Malaysia, Mr Lee had only bilateral issues in mind, offering to trade Malaysia's irrelevant political issues like its impractical proposal to replace the causeway with a crooked drawbridge thought of at the spur of the moment by a consortium of UMNO politicians and business men and one which made no sense whatever with Singapore's need for a continuos supply of Malaysian water and military overflights at will over Malaysian airspace. All it revealed was that Pak Lah cannot deliver, with even his UMNO in Johore insisting it be consulted first. It revealed a naked Pak Lah, like the naked emperor, insisting he is fully clothed. All three revel in rhetoric to rally its troops but annoying its neighbors instead.

Its top management, there to wheel and deal for greed, are appointed by Mr Khairy and putty in his hands. He is known to SMS to the CEO to order contracts issued to those who had earlier been disqualified. It came to a head when Mr Che' Khalib informed a tender committee that Mr Khairy had ordered him by SMS to award the contract to someone else. When this became an issue, Mr Khairy admitted this to his close friends, one of whom promptly sent this admission on by SMS to all and sundry. Among those short-listed was a tender from Pak Lah's brother, who complained bitterly he was overlooked. It is routine for the TNB CEO to dismiss requests from Pak Lah if one to the contrary comes from his son-in-law.

THE BOOK HAS A TITLE guaranteed to inflame: "Khairy Jamaludin Bakal Perdana Mentri?" (Khairy Jamaludin a prime minister-to-be?). His father-in-law and prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, was so shocked and incensed that he summoned the author to express his displeasure. Every effort is made to have the book off the shelves. The New StraitsTimes has warned its news vendors they would be dropped if they had the book for sale. So intent is this that the book has disappeared from the market, but the book sells well since they are being bought off the market. This is not unusual. About a decade-and-a-half ago, an unflattering book about the present deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, disappeared off the shelves when those aligned to him bought out the unsold books, the printing plates, and the few thousand unbound copies of the book. The contents of that book, at the time, was as explosive as this book which is all but banned. Besides Mr Khairy, it warns of the unhealthy influence of the young crowd arond him who prevent Pak Lah from meeting whomsoever he wants. One prominent Malaysian whom Pak Lah wanted to meet, at the latter's request, was prevented by this praetorian guard.

THE FORMER PRIME MINISTER, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, is an angry man indeed. His successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, pulls no stops to ensure he is put to pasture once and for all. He does not want another ghost hovering over his shoulder. One, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, is bad enough and, try as he might, cannot shake him off. Dr Mahathir says his undoubted role in Malaysian history is besmirched with unfounded allegations he bankrupted the government with his government, and of cutting Pak Lah down to size.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY, TAN Sri Samsuddin Osman, should have retired two years ago. But so towering and well-rounded a civil servant is he that the prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, cannot let him go to seed. The nation needs him. If he should go now, it would disrupt the projects he is responsible for. He gets his first extension of two years on the day of his retirement. Pak Lah says his invaluable guidance is needed to raise the standards of public service to greater heights. He justifies it with the usual gobbledegook: absolutely confident – note the superlative! – this towering, well-rounded civil servant will steer the public service to greater heights, bring more changes and enhance the public service delivery system. "There are many things that need to be done in the administration for positive changes," and "Samsuddin must lead efforts to bring about these changes." And extends his term for another year.

DATO' SERI ABDULLAH AHMAD Badawi, should be on top of the world. He led the National Front (BN) to its best ever electoral showing four months after he succeeded Tun Mahathir Mohamed as prime minister in November 2004. Two months later, he was elected unopposed as UMNO president. On paper, he had more power, and control, of Malaysia, UMNO and BN than any of his predecessors. But he is not at peace. His writ does not run, unless enforced with a whip. The state UMNO chiefs defy him with impunity. His cabinet is split. His deputy prime minister and deputy UMNO president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, is in revolt, after Pak Lah's advisers decided he had to be cut down to size to protect their leader; and he, not to be undone, is on the offensive. The two men are bitter political rivals, but challenge so amaterurishly that it beggars belief.

Before he left, he sent word to the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, whose contempt for the man is ill disguised, that should he should continue to attack and belittle him as he has, he would retaliate so it would be front page news in the New Straits Times. The import of it was clear: the NST, under its present leadership, has no love lost for him. Besides, the Pak Lah camp is incensed that the Najib camp has gone on the warpath. It looks an even fight now, so word of that has yet to make the newspapers. Which is why the menace in Dato' Seri Anwar's threat is all the more serious.

The exposes threaten not only Musa's, but Pak Lah's, credibility. The central core of the Malaysia Today expose is Musa's corruption of the state. Pak Lah's much-vaunted and touted crackdown on corruption has spluttered to an embarrassing halt. He arrested and charged two high profile men – a cabinet minister and a business man. His minister of law, Rais Yatim, said another 18 would follow. But this embarrassed Pak Lah. Various explanations were offered: it was not 18 individuals but 18 groups. But the anti-corruption campaign is no more. Bets are now taken that the two men would eventually be acquitted. What Musa has done, the expose concludes, is worse than all that.

Dato' Seri Musa is at the centre of several scandals, which Malaysia Today (www.malaysia-today.net) highlighted recently on its website. He denies the scandals with silence, and sets to find who leaked them and why. He is no different as a chief minister who is a federal puppet. He is firmly in the camp of the UMNO president, and prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The scandals he is in the middle of puts Pak Lah in a dilemma: if he moves against Dato' Seri Musa, he goes down with him. For the central plank of his administration is a crackdown on corruption. He started well, arrested a cabinet minister and a prominent businessman; and then faltered. Even when UMNO leaders, in his cabinet, bribed their way to victory in the September 2004 supreme council elections, he would not act. UMNO would deal with it from within, he decided, and not let the police or the anti-corruption agency investigate. The police and ACA, faced with this widespread bribery, decides discretion is the better part of valour.

The government system is rotten to the core. It reflects what happens in every government department. Political control of it has introduced rigor mortis into the system. This is made certain by the four ills inherent in the system: Malay racism, Islamic fanaticism, corruption and incompetence. To complicate it, several groups run riot to implement it to the exclusion of every other. Pak Lah, even if he means what he says, is impotent. He would be destroyed politically if he should be foolish enough to try. He does not, nor do any one else, know the powers ranged against a return to the politics and the civil service when both were looked up to. The mess in the TNB happens in every government department, and government-linked company. It now spreads to the private companies, when the politicians move in for the kill there, too. It is helped by political and civil service arrogance and naivete.

More than that, Pak Lah must step in and stop the rot if either is to survive. Federal history in Sabah is a catalogue of encroachment, directly or through proxies. For two decades it governed the state through local warlords, who enriched themselves at the people's expense. Then it took over that role. Hardly a federal cabinet minister did not enjoy the largesse of the state. It is discussed whenever Sabahans meet. A day after Anwar arrived, Sabah's politics is as volatile as ever. The tsunami struck again.

The tsunami devastates at random, strikes without notice (even with notice, its destructive force can only be ameliorated, not removed), a random destructive force which the mightiest military force cannot prevent. Pak Lah chose the wrong metaphor; he should have equated the devastation of Banda Aceh with, say, not Dresden but Fallujah, which lay waste to the mechanical and electronic tsunami that is the US armed forces. Those who survive, in Banda Aceh and Fallujah, evoke the same emotions, the sympathy going to the victims, not the tsunami which caused it. The tsunami, natural and political, spreads destruction whenever the hidden fault lines collide. If he means what he says, he should fly over Fallujah as he did over Banda Aceh. He need not be born in 1929 for that.

Pak Lah talks only of help to indonesia when he landed in Jakarta for the one-day meeting to co-ordinate help for the tsunami victims. But he ignored his role as chairman of both the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Non-Aligned Movement. The countries affected are members of either or both. He wants badly to be on the right side of President Susilo Bambang Yudhyono than the rest of the world, including Malaysia. He is so caught up in his own survival as UMNO president and Malaysian prime minister that he appears to have little time for other, more important issues.

If they are not punished, the most up-to-date machinery and equipment is pointless and a waste of scarce money. Pak Lah should insist these officers are rusticated for no extenuating circumstances exist for their absence. If they had to be absent, other officers should have taken their place. But could Pak Lah take this drastic, but necessary, step? I doubt it.

The non-Malay parties from the peninsula in the BN coalition, having for so long clung to UMNO's coattails, are in terror for what is to come if this infighting in UMNO turns into a political civil war; but those from Sarawak and Sabah, Muslim and non-Muslim, native and Malay, sharpen their knives to forestall any federal attempts to impose its will or crush their demands for a more localised polity. There is no public talk of it, the media here are famously known for only a sanitised view through the rosy spectacles of the UMNO president. Few Malaysians therefore will even consider that all is not right. They do not believe the UMNO supreme council is full of men and women back the former president Mahathir Mohamed, not his successor Pak Lah.

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