In the past, a non-Malay minister would have been sent. But he has no powers and cannot commit the Malays. So these visits evolve no purpose. Today, the Chinese government would expect a Malay minister to come to it on an issue that is as important to Malaysia as Chinese tourists visiting the country. But did China agree to receive Malaysia today in Beining? Obviously not. The Chinese ambassador, Mr Wang Chung, visited Putra Jaya yesterday to tell Dato' Azmi not to come. It is common diplomatic practice for a minister to get a his host's permission to visit. It is no use visiting a country to find the host somwhere else. It has been hone by thousands of years of diplomatic practice. The cabinet announced it and then told China. In a matter of this importance, the plans for the visit had to be kept as quiet as possible. But the Malaysian government addes to the negative reports by announcing it. But Malaysia is caught. It needs to tell the Malays, particularly those voting in Pengkalen Pasir state constituency on 6 December 2005, that it is doing something. Mr Wang, who is high up in the Chinese Government, should have been consulted to get out of this mess. Was he? We don't know. But since the issue is responsibe for the negative reports, consulting Mr Wang would have been all over the newspapers here.

The newspapers, all owned by National Front members, has become party newspapers. How they cover the Pengkalen Pasir byelection shows it. Dato' Seri Anwar was listened to rapturously by a crowd of 10,000. But there is hardly any report of that in the mainstream media. It is the internet that carries such news. It is the internet that splashed the story of the nude China woman. The print media did not report it until their reporters could get some one in authority who could rebut it. But that is what party organs do. That is what the mainstream newspapers do. This present crisis will not go away, not so long as the Chinese tourists do not return. But Malaysia should worry about this. There is no rapport between Thai Prime Minister and his Malaysian counterpart, because each took positions on the Thai Muslims and made statements each wished each had not. So, a modus vivendi was reached by getting Tun Mahathir Mohamed, the former prime minister, to meet Mr Thakson Shinawatra. Today, there is calm in the Thai South, but that to do with a Thai editor locking horns with him. But both Malaysia and Thailand is afraid that the Thai Muslims in the south would want independent of either. But Malaysia is used to this: it lost the other oil producing Malay state, Brunei, from joining Malaysia by its own mistakes.

The Chinese government is on the warpath. But more important is the byelection in Pengkalen Pasir. What it says in public, and what its newspapers report on the police harassing the Chinese tourist becomes a political issue there as well. The average Malay does not want to be tarred with all this. The National Front hopes that he would not vote PAS as a result. The National Front, which in effect means UMNO, has forgotten about Islam Hadhari in Pengkalen Pasir, and hopes the voters will forget the MMS videoclip. But it has become an election issue in Kelantan. It goes against the Islam ummah (community), in which the non-Malay can live in peace but in a subsidiary role. But Islam does not allow them to be maltreated. The longer this issue is highlighted, the more difficult would be Malaysia's stance against the Chinese government, and UMNO's position in the byelection in Kelantan.

But this is questioned even by the Malay. The byelection in Pengkalen Pasir is a case in point. The deputy prime minister has promised a 10,000 strong procession to accompany the candidate. The Malaysian government is involved in a byelection in which the dead state assemblyman won by 65 votes. Pak Lah, no less, has taken the byelection as important, and has got the federal government machinery involved. Why? Because its opponent is PAS, a Malay party which does not believe in Malay ketuanan. The National Front, in this case UMNO, has asked the PAS state government to resign if it lost the seat. But has Pak Lah said he would resign, as would all state government it controls, if UMNO lost Pengkalen Pasir? Why not, given that it has UMNO throughout the country involved in Pengkalen Pasir? He will not order a fresh general elections. It is important that pressure be put on PAS to keep ketuanan as the UMNO agenda. Who wins does not matter, for it would change the balance of parties in the Kelantan state assembly. But to UMNO it does. Its leaders got carried away by their own rhetoric. The law does not allow a politician to resign and re-contest. The UMNO politician cannot afford to resign. But PAS state assemblyman will, for the party's future. There is nothing to prevent individual PAS state assemblyman to resign from now to the next general election. It might put UMNO in power but the frequent resignations will make its hold on the state moot. The National Front, and UMNO, may not know it yet, but its police of Malay Ketuanan is under attack, so it piles on the pressure on PAS. Islam Hadhari is forgotten in this byelection. How can UMNO talk of Islam Hadhari when its Malay ketuanan is on attack?

THE BYELECTIONS FOR THE Pengkalen Pasir state assembly constituency in Kelantan is the first since the general elections last year. The result will make no difference to who governs Kelantan but the main political parties involved, the National Front though practically UMNO, and PAS are treating it as a matter of life or death. UMNO has called for the state government to resign if it wins, though why the PAS government should not when it can rule the state whatever the result. It was Tun Mahathir who said he would remain prime minister even if the National Front won by one seat. PAS could well be in that position after the byelections. But it is seen as a 'prestige' issue for both that they win Pengkalen Pasir. For UMNO it is a prestige issue, but little else. The leaders of UMNO, including the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, have visited Pengkalen Pasir in the runup to the byelections. There is a permanent UMNO presence from outside in Pengkelan Pasir. The UMNO leader in Kelantan has asked that UMNO and PAS reveal their candidate simultaneously so that one would not get an advantage over the other. They are trying to change the political rules when National Front meets PAS in a PAS- ruled state. But PAS is nervous as well, though why it should be beats every rational Malaysian. UMNO leaders from Kelantan are at odds with the head of the state UMNO, and they work hard to diminish him. And what better way is there than make sure he falls flat in Pengkalen Pasir. A victory for UMNO there would benefit him, and that is not what they want.

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