The 2004 General Elections should have been no different. The BN would have won with its two-thirds and more majority. The Opposition would have held its ground, or even lose some of it. But the BN realised the old practices cannot work. The Pendang parliamentary and Anak Bukit state assembly byelections in Kedah - it won one, lost the other - two years ago hinted at the dangers ahead: the BN could not depend on the Malay ground, disenchanted with it since Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim was sacked, jailed, humiliated and beaten to a pulp in defiance of Malay cultural rules, and that divide forced it to a new alignment with the Chinese and the bumiputras of Sarawak and Sabah. It was equally important for PAS to be sidelined. In Parliament, it showed up a BN front bench as the Malaysian Keystone Cops, bumbling and bungling its way from one relentless parliamentary question to another, unable to debate the issues, frightened when PAS leaders stand up to speak, unwilling to stand up, running away from the chamber when the issues got an uncomfortably close airing. So it enhanced the advantage it had with the new electoral boundaries with a little skullduggery of its own.

But because much of what happens in BN is not thought out, no effort was made to prevent the power brokers - who in the regime of Pak Lah transform into warlords - from amassing an election fund over which the centre now has no control. With elections around the corner, the BN seeks desperately for funds for it. How much does it need? BN officials estimate it at RM3,000 a voter in a parliamentary, and RM1,500 a voter in a state, constituency. In the Pendang parliamentary and Anak Bukit state assembly byelection in Kedah in 2001, it spent RM60 million and RM30 million respectively. With an average 40,000 voters in a parliamentary constituency, it needs RM120 million, or a total of RM2.5 billion with another RM1 billion for the state constituencies. The BN allots RM500,000 for a parliamentary, and RM250,000 for a state assembly, candidate. This and other organisational expenses do not fall of the election laws which limit what each candidate may spend since they are absorbed by the political party, not the candidate.

The Mahathir statement was enough to have BN leaders to echo the need for change and renewal. The BN secretary-general, Tan Sri Mohamed Rahmat, told the Utusan Malaysia that BN lost constituencies and states in elections when party veterans stayed on even when defeat was inevitable. PAS defeated BN in Kelantan in every election since 1990 because the veterans did not see the writing on the wall. In 1999, the BN mentri besar of Trengganu, Tan Sri Wan Mokhtar Wan Ahmad, in office since 1974, did not realise the resentment against his person, and that allowed PAS to defeat BN after 38 years in office. But the lesson is not learnt. In the Pendang and Anak Bukit byelections in Kedah, the veterans would not give way. That one was returned in Pendang is not proof of BN's strength, but a quirk in the process.

IT WAS A BRILLIANT SETUP. This time the National Front (BN) would show how rascally PAS MPs are. It did not succeed now as well. Each time it has PAS in its sights and attacks, it is not PAS but BN which is wounded. This time PAS would not get away, the BN strategists insisted. The accidental BN MP for Pendang, Dato' Osman Abdul, is all but certain he could not be re-elected in the coming general elections against a PAS candidate. PAS is so well-entrenched that he believes PAS could capture the state. So he does nothing to lose if he made a fool of himself. So he asked a question in Parliament on 24 September 2003 which BN thought would tie PAS in knots: Would the Prime Minister reveal how many MPs claimed expenses more than RM10,000. The parliamentary secretary in the Prime Minister's Department, Dato' Noh Omar, decided he would not answer it but focus his attention on one PAS MP, Mr Arpandi Mohamed, who had claimed between RM11,000 and RM12,000 a month for 18 months. It was reported as if he had done something wrong. The BN scented blood. And called in the Anti-Corruption Agency to investigate. The ACA, never missing a chance to reveal its toothless impotence, began its investigations. That it did is linked to with top-level discussions this weekend if general election should be held in December.

The accidental MP for Pendang, Dato' Osman Abdul, made the astonishing revelation that what happened in Pendang is reflected in every Kedah parliamentary and state assembly constituency. He won because 6,000 Malays stayed away. They stay away because they do not want to vote for an UMNO candidate. The view now is that since UMNO does not fulfil its promises - in health, for instance - why not give PAS a chance, and see if it could perform better than UMNO. And suddenly the UMNO MPs at the retreat wondered if they were attending a requiem for a political retreat from power.

When this club holds its annual dinners, leading UMNO lights rush to grace their presence. It is, believe it or not, an important group in the UMNO political process, holds no loyalty to any UMNO leader - in fact its loyalties, by and large, are to an ex-UMNO politician whose political influence rise with every day he spends in Sungei Buloh jail. In the 1987 UMNO presidential contest, it was Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim who swung this club to swing to ensure Dr Mahathir's victory. His instructions then were clear: Dr Mahathir to be returned at whatever cost. As he was. When UMNO youth targeted Opposition, especial Parti KeADILan Nasional (KeADILan) workers in the Indera Kayanagan state assembly byelection in Perlis, and the Kedah parliamentary byelection in Pendang and the state assembly poll in Anak Bukit, it was this commando group which provided them protection.

For all the special efforts the Election Commission makes to ensure a runaway victory for the National Front (BN), which acts on only government orders, and distinguishes between government and opposition parties, it is not assured. The fine-tuning of the electoral rolls is not fine-tuned enough: the Anak Bukit and Pendang byelections put a spanner in the works, and as cabinet ministers freely admit, surprises cannot be ruled out. Since the next general election will make or break Dato' Seri Abdullah, who would be, by then, prime minister, he must ensure that no discordant media voices be allowed.

The non-Malay BN party leaders, unable to be elected from urban constituencies, can only be elected from rural and semi-rural constituencies, where the Malays are in the majority or dominant. Every MCA, Gerakan and MIC leader is elected likewise. The danger now is the split within the Malay community when UMNO self-immolated by dismissing its deputy president by playing fast and loose with the rules. The Malay rose in anger, and UMNO now has to fight for that constituency as it never had to. As the Pendang and Anak Bukit byelections in Kedah showed, that is now certain. If UMNO candidates in the general elections are unsure of their hold on the electorate, how could they help the non-Malay leader? So, the issue suddenly is not what the two MCA state assemblymen did, but if BN could survive, as UMNO, MIC, MCA, Gerakan and other component parties, if unity is decided upon capriciously and at the whim and fancy of the moment?

Nothing grows under a banyan tree. Dr Mahathir is so dominant in Malaysian politics that he creates a vaccuum in UMNO's, and the country's, leadership. UMNO leaders dare not venture into their constituencies, nor meet their constituences except in controlled situations where it would be impolite ("kurang ajar") to raise one's grievances. The UMNO is in such bad shape in the bondooks that it needs little for UMNO headquarters to go into rigor mortis. As after the Lunas, Pendang and Anak Bukit byelections in Dr Mahathir's home state of Kedah. The SMS service will not reverse this, as the UMNO website did not. It must take harsh and hard decisions it cannot. The hardest is what to do with Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the jailed former deputy prime minister. Without resolving it, UMNO would be marginal in the Malay cultural world. His declining health worries the thinking and worried UMNO leaders and members no end. But neither Dr Mahathir nor his putative successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, would budge from keeping him in Sungei Buloh until he has served his full sentence. The mistake they make is to look at him as a convict when the Malay ground regard him as a political leader wronged.

The BN and UMNO had had a black eye in every byelection since the general election in 1999, even where it won. Today, UMNO ministers and leaders are frightened of meeting the Malay ground, and prepared to meet them in controlled conditions. The last two bye-elections, in Pendang and Anak Bukit in Kedah, frightened UMNO beyond belief. The strong Malay and Chinese support it hoped for turned out a mirage. More frighteningly for the UMNO and BN is the common cause Chinese and Indian cultural groups informally forged with PAS, with the MCA and MIC unable to make much progress with their respective racial support because their leaders, for their own survival, needs to be with the government and is prepared to cock a snook at the community they nominally represent.

But that success ensured UMNO Puteri's irrelevance. They were now a new power group within UMNO, and redounded on the largely moribund UMNO. But they had their own mind, and did not fear to exercise it. In the Pendang and Anak Bukit byelections, UMNO presumed that the large number of Puteri UMNO would automatically vote for the has-been UMNO candidate. They did not. Even Ms Azalina could not help here. UMNO leaders decided enough was enough. And took steps to keep in within its control, and not allow it to echo the modern Malay working women and mothers. They wanted Ms Azalina Othman to continue, come what may. It is another good UMNO idea gone to seed.

First the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, announced, at the UMNO General Assembly this year, he would resign after the OIC Summit in Kuala Lumpur next year. It surprised himself, let alone everyone. Once made, he could not retract it. He had not intended to, but as happens rather frequently, his mind deserts him off and on. His aides built a cordon around him, kept him incommunicado, and speedily sent him overseas on holiday. He returned to insist he resigns as scheduled. Few believed him. This time he is serious. The Pendang and Anak Bukit byelection results put his constituency of Kubang Pasu at risk, which even the constituency realignments could obviate, and made his departure certain. He could get a drubbing, not by losing but by being returned with a narrow majority, as happened to the first Prime Minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, in 1969.

The UMNO president claims he has proof of such electoral skullduggery in Penang and Anak Bukit. "We have proof," he thunders (New Straits Times, 31 August 2002) as muddledly as unfortunately too often these days, "to show that those people who are not born there, not working there, not resident and do not even own a house in the constitutencies ... ang registered in Anak Bukit and Pendang constituencies without a proper address ... just by the name of the kampung, these are the actual phantom voters and they are all PAS people." Besides, 1,359 UMNO supporters could not vote in both constituencies as their names were removed from the "voting list". In other words, the EC conspired with parties unknown to ensure UMNO lost.

The Pendang and Anak Bukit byelections last month is evidence of a virtual civil war between UMNO and PAS, in which no quarter is given or taken. UMNO wakes up to the horrifying reality that it could lost Kedah to PAS in the coming general election, and Dr Mahathir could well find it tough to retain his Kubang Pasu if, as it is now likely, he would remain in office until he decides it time to leave.

To not put a fine point to it, UMNO's poor showing in the Pendang and Anak Bukit bye-elections is a direct consequence of that internal convulsion.

The Malaysian government has lost control of the Anwar affair. It dominates local politics, even if not as apparent, the feudal hurt in the Anwar affair now the mainstay of political opposition to the government. With Dato' Seri enchaining it in foreign affairs, the government must go for the jugular. The Prime Minister's racist remarks in light of Pendang and Anak bye-elections is one facet of it. His irritation at PAS and its Islamic agenda another. The silence of those who must speak out, in the cabinet and UMNO, is a third. When only one man makes all the statements and the decisions, especially one who is to retire in 16 months, the disquiet even amongst those who believe Dato' Seri Anwar deserves more than what he got speaks volumes. It could, must, lead to another arrest of political opponents. But could the government afford that?

Besides, the Malay ground is not so enamoured of UMNO as he wants it to. He must take credit for that. What frightens UMNO and him is that that cultural hurt -- the dismissal, humiliation, jailing of a former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim -- is subsumed now in a larger cultural angst. PAS leads it in the absence of a cultural leader. The Pendang and Anak Bukit bye-elections affirmed it. PAS challenges it so vehemently that UMNO must wish it had more time to campaign. But it cannot extend the fortnight's campaigning during elections. For if it does, it blinks. Besides, the opposition would welcome the longer campaign. That UMNO could not wrest the Anak Bukit state assembly constituency in Kedah, and with it to wrest the two-thirds majority it lost in an earlier bye-elections is a body blow to its hold on the Kedah electorate. It is also where Dr Mahathir has his home. Should Dr Mahathir stand for re-election, he must anticipate a result that would destroy his political and cultural standing for ever.

The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, wanted to put Malaysia and UMNO on a firm footing his 21 years in office made anything but. He decided, in an oracular firmness reminiscent of Zeus on Mount Olympus, the deputy prime minister and successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, must name his deputy prime minister and he must be the UMNO vice president and Malaysian defence minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. It did not matter if Dato' Seri Abdullah had his own candidate in mind, another vice president and Malaysian domestic trade minister, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin, and Dato' Seri Najib not keen. The Oracle has spoken. So it shall come to pass. Dato' Abdullah, under pressure, said he would after 18 July 2002, with the Pendang and Anak Bukit bye-elections out of the way, with, as UMNO circles naively believed, brilliant National Front (BN) victories. It was not to be. And so the deputy prime minister's deputy prime minister.

Before 1998, he was the darling of the Malaysian, and world, crowds. After, he dared not venture in public except under heavy escort, talks to Malaysians from afar, usually well-fortified holdouts, the prospect of being booed ever present. The newspapers all but ignored the milestone, Pendang and Anak Bukit reducing it to nought. A more public celebration would have made him the laughing stock of the nation. So a subdued one it was. And like Dr Mahathir landing in Kedah to fulfull a long standing commitment amidst the bye-elections, he could not back out of this listless celebration of what Malaysians are disinclined to celebrate: his 21st year in office. But he must wish he had. And he must rue that Malaysians would rather remember the fifth anniversary of his humiliation of his former deputy prime minister than the 21 years he had been Prime Minister.

If Dr Mahathir showed Dato' Seri Anwar one tenth the concern he showed Miss Ras Adiba, and allowed him the operation in Germany, UMNO could with ease wrested the Pendang parliamentary and Anak Bukit parliamentary constituencies in the bye-elections this month. The two seats have been UMNO's since 1955, the Anwar fallout in 1998 led to the PAS president, Dato' Fadhil Noor, seizing it in the 1999 general elections. UMNO wrested Pendang but not Anak Bukit, but despite confident predictions the alienated Malays return to the UMNO fold, it is in shell shock.

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