Parliament cannot question the concession agreement; indeed it has not seen it. Dato' Seri Samy treats it as an unecessary irritation and irrelevance and comes before it as an arrogant teacher would regard a class of unruly idiots. It worked when the prime minister of the day thought so too, and backed him. But who came after him wants to be a man for all seasons, but knows not how. His own hold of UMNO and the BN government is suspect. UMNO endorsed him only conditionally. He could have moved smartly ahead with a pruned cabinet of workhorses; instead he lets matters slide, the cabinet no more than his rubber stamp, and buffeted by party warlords in the centre and in the states. In typical Malay fashion, the attacks are concentrated on his weakest link. Which is why Dato' Seri Samy fights for his political life. Pak Lah should have dropped him when he took office, but dared not. The BN parties choose their own representatives to the cabinet, he says. But when the BN parties agree to so many other unchangeables being changed, does that now hold?

He should have realised that both Malaysia and Singapore should be comfortable with the agreements reached. As it looks, Pak Lah and his cabinet might, but few else. Bilateral ties could end up worse than they are.

Fiscal policy is controlled by the the prime minister's department and often out of step with the Treasury and no co-ordination. The two offices have become centres of political power, and therefore controlled by Pak Lah as prime minister. He exerts control by grabbing all the decision making powers of the two ministries and more, but lets weak deputies – ministers and others – to take the unpalatable decisions, or not decide at all. If this twin problems are not bad enough, there is another: Bank Negara Malaysia, the central bank. But all three head for rigor mortis, cannot make up their minds, rush in only when a crisis is at hand, paper over the cracks, and disappear into the woodwork.

He has so succeeded in this that the prime minister, Pak Lah, had to caution foreign governments not to receive Anwar. He is an opposition politician, Malaysia does not entertain foreign politicians of foreign countries, and it would improve bilateral ties if they didn't either.

These general border committee meetings have a three-decade history, have no political impact, are aimed at reducing tension along the border, usually over territory but began life as a co-ordinating body to control the influx of communist irregulars along their borders. Pak Lah must ensure the two men do not meet, though that, given their intractible hostility to each other, is unlikely. But he cannot be too sure. In short, Malay politics intrude into national and international policy.

This forces Pak Lah to skate on thin ice; and could consume him. His first task should be to reunite the horribly fractured Malay cultural community, which is forced to confront a future in which Islam, not Malay cultural beliefs and practices, dominates in a cynical political environment of Westernised modernity and Islamic religiosity without a Malay cultural bias.

However one looks at it, UMNO is held to ransom by the fratricidal confrontation between Pak Lah and Dr Mahathir. "Bring on the dummies", the good doctor ordered, as he acted to stop Pak Lah in his tracks, and succeeded, his principal lieutenant the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. What is more, the dummies won. Pak Lah has to rope in his bitter political enemy who is also Dr Mahathir's, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, to bat for him. All it did is proof that UMNO is now beyond redemption; that Pak Lah cannot depend on Pak Sheikh for his future; that the infighting within will break UMNO asunder; that if Dr Mahathir would not destroy Pak Lah, Pak Sheikh would; and all the wealth of Malaysia cannot put UMNO together ever again.

TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND MALAYSIANS and others, so we are told, thronged the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur for Aidil Fitri for six hours to greet the prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and his cabinet. In normal years, it would have been the prime minister's show; this year, Pak Lah brought them in as co-hosts.

Nowhere was this so baldly reflected than in the two Open Houses of the jailed former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. That he is released causes sleepless nights for many a senior UMNO leader. UMNO has decided he should never sully its doors ever again. But he nevertheless spreads terror and mayhem in equal proportions in UMNO. He had his Open House at his home in Cherok Tok Kun in Permatang Pauh the same day as the prime minister and UMNO president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in neighbouring Kepala Batas, called on him first, and set political tongues wagging, frightening UMNO politicians, with political explanations to suggest both a new political alliance to destroy the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, to a pre-emptive political takeover of UMNO in a Machiavellian bid to tip Pak Lah over. The simple explanation – that he did the neighbourly thing as custom demands, and to thank him in person for his release – was too blase to be taken seriously. A week after the event, Pak Lah had to insist that it was a friendly, not a political, call and nothing of consequence was discussed.

The post-Mahathir leaders, including his successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, decided the Anwar affair was Dr Mahathir's, not theirs, and all but washed their hands off. So, when Anwar got his freedom through the courts in September, it caught both Dr Mahathir and Pak Lah flat-footed. In this confusion, Anwar had his microsurgery overseas, revealing the official cussedness in not allowing him to while in prison, re-entered the political fray with a verve and confidence that contrasted sharply with the petty infighting Umno and BN politics had descended to.

Surely, the issue is more. Bribery exists at all levels of society. All governments and political parties can do is to restrict it with laws and rules enforced strictly so one would think carefully before one accepted a bribe. It would be a foolhardy UMNO politician if, as a businessman, he bribes his way to run a factory in Singapore. He would see the inside of a prison that would be denied him in half a dozen lifetimes in his country across the causeway. Unless, of course, he is Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who would be thrown in jail, as he was, in Malaysia for revealing the corrupt world UMNO and the government it leads is. Where the UMNO-led coalition government went wrong was when it stalled all allegations and reports of money politics even when his cabinet colleagues talked about its prevalence. If Pak Lah had a police investigation of the claims of the Pahang mentri besar and the information minister, and a thorough inquiry into the oft repeated calls to do so at the general assembly, UMNO would not in the sticky wicket it is in now.

It does not matter if Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu blames the finance ministry for his ministry's deficiences; but that he attacks the finance minister of the time – his former patron, Dr Mahathir – is proof his own political future is cloudy as it should have been a decade ago. The UMNO president of the day prefers another Indian to represent the community. Dato' Seri Samy hopes to prevent that by biting the political hand that fed him. He hopes Pak Lah would see this treachery as proof he can be relied upon. But he, like every BN party president, overstates his political importance. He is but another door mat for the UMNO president to step on. The intrigues within would have made the Byzantine court proud. But the BN emperor is encircled by a hostile enemy, the people, as surely as the Ottomans laid seige of Constantinople city walls with an entrapped Byzantium emperor inside. What frightens the BN emperor even more is that he is cornered in his city walls as securely by his Ottoman emperor, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

He talks his way around Malaysia's problems, since he took office a year ago, with facile, instant answeres which gets him banner headlines but little else and reveals only his impotence. He is Malaysia's oracle of choice. Ministers can complain and cajole for all they want, but having cried wolf once too often, is ignored. Pak Lah takes over and repeats it. Nothing still gets done but that is often an order to ignore it. And he moves on, leaving the entrails of his outpourings all over as a child after he has done with his toys.

He so far eschewed attacking personalities, preferring instead policies and philosophies. He has extended the olive branch to his political enemies, Pak Lah in particular. Indeed, he did send word to those who attacked him at the UMNO general assembly that if they persist, he would be forced to, and that could well end their political careers. The attacks stopped. With each press conference and interview, he becomes more credible.

The Star approach is typical of this re-creation of Pak Lah as 'one of us' by the mainstream press to divert attention into irrelevance when larger issues of state demand his, and our, attention. We know why. Pak Lah sits on an uneasy throne which his spinmeisters believe can best be secured by banal platitudes and irrelevant sideshows. Malaysia is not alone in this. The Singapore Straits Times recently carried a news story about President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urging Indonesians to prefer the nation's interest not their own. Look at the New Straits Times front page headlines about Malaysian affairs: it is one banal platitude or irrelevant sideshow after another. The issues that should be discussed are not. The ghastly reality television shows, now the staple on Malaysian television networks, have come into the mainstream of life, and newspapers begin a print edition of it.

It is not all his doing. Dr Mahathir resigned his office only when he could no longer remain, forced out than on his own accord. That he did not want to let go was self-evident. Pak Lah's first difficulty was to distance himself from him. It proved harder than it need have. He surrounded himself with a group of inexperienced young advisers led by his son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, with its agenda of being movers and shakes in their own right, and a ragtag of political and business followers with no more ambition than as cronies in a Pak Lah court with a view, in both groups, of the UMNO heartland as cannon fodder. This put the traditional UMNO leaders, especially the mentris besar, long the mainstay of the administration's strength even under Dr Mahathir who often had no time for them, in fear of their place, and quickly became a force in their own right, and fanned rebellion from within.

He emerges as the whipping boy in the continuing fight for the UMNO soul between Pak Lah and his deputy, Najib Tun Razak. The Pak Lah camp frightens the Najib camp with threats of a full pardon for Anwar. It does not of course mean it. But it is enough form Najib to be careful of his movements. But this could explode in both their faces. There is a move to grant him a full and unconditional pardon, one, if the rumours are true, several sultans would go along with. But it would be egg on both their faces if he does, in the end, get an unconditional pardon.

When awards are freely given and in the gift of politicians, it does not take long for cash to change hands. It is an open secret how much one needs to pay for a title. One who wants a title can always get it if he is prepared to pay for it. Now the scam has gone one step further: the sale of fake awards. Two men, one now dead and the other still in Pak Lah's cabinet, were recommended by a former Yang Dipertuan Agung for Tan Sris; the then prime minister, Dr Mahathir, agreed, but the pair did not get it. The man who translated the final list in Jawi substituted his name for one, and a business man for the other. When this was known, Dr Mahathir did nothing about it. In another instance, the sultan wanted to honour a prominent civil servant from his state, but the man's head of department, who must be informed of it, decided he needed it more than his deputy.

"I am very unhappy with all these happenings. There have been a lot of complaints. Something must be wrong," Pak Lah said (Sunday Star, p1), "I want to hear from Samy Vellu why these things are happening and to find out why." This has given Dato' Seri Samy courage. But his lion-like roar is a little muted as reality hits home.

An apocryphal tale of bribes concerns a state chief police officer who got his post by tender: he offered several thousands of ringgit a month to his superiors and others, and got the post because his was the highest. And of a senior police officer who retired unexpectedly when underworld figures he was beholden to raped his daughter when a sudden police raid netted several of them. Are these true? I do not know. But when retired senior police figures do not discount it, can there be not some truth to it? What should frighten Pak Lah and his government that this practice has now spread to the civil service and the armed forces.

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