Women in the new UMNO are treated badly although they have played a valiant role in the early days. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in prison, thought up a wing of educated women different from the women's wing. But the opposition did not agree with him, dilly dallied over it for months. UMNO ran with it, and created a revolution in politics. All political parties, in the government and in the opposition, are toying with the idea of a special young educated women's wing. In UMNO, they proved to be efficient campaigners. In the Indera Kayangan byelection in Perlis, Puteri Umno made its mark. Since then, it has been active in all elections. UMNO has found the most important political weapon ever but spoiled it when it founded Putera UMNO which became a vehicle for the UMNO Youth deputy president and Pak Lah's son-in-law, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, to unseat the UMNO Youth leader, Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein.

That Putera UMNO is not. It is a vehicle for Mr Khairy has used to get rid of Dato'Hishamuddin Hussein, the UMNO Youth leader, before the next party elections. It was formed, as usual without thought, so that it was a male alternative to Puteri Umno. The Puteri Umno was formed because the young professional women of today thought the UMNO's women's wing, Kaum Ibu, staid and was peopled by women who did understand their problems. It has become the most original political unit that in Malaysia since the Second World War. Besides getting the young professional women a politicial life, it has also forced other political parties, in the National Front and outside, to copy Puteri Umno, and form similar avenues for its young women professionals. But Putera UMNO does not have such credentials. Mr Khairy's and Dato' Azeez's difficulties only makes Putera UMNO a bad idea.

UMNO was founded in 1946 for a different purpose than the official spin has it. So its women's and youth wing. Dato' Onn, the founder of UMNO and grandfather of Hishamuddin, had got the women to protest the British plans to reduce Malay sultans to a cipher, which is how they came into politics. The first UMNO youth president was Tun Hussein, Hishamuddin's father and Malaysian prime minister. The formation of Putera UMNO for reasons other than the progress of Malaysia, or even of the Malays, is a distorition, The only innovation it has made to its membership is Puteri Umno; the other political parties, particularly PAS, have formed their own version of Puteri Umno.

THE NATIONAL FRONT, OR rather UMNO, has won the Kelantan state constituency seat of Pengkalen Pasir. The National Front publicity machine is ecstatic about it, but UMNO does not think it a victory. They see it not as a gladitorial contest between UMNO and PAS but as between Khairy Jamaluddin and Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak to see who would have the inside track to be Prime Minister after Khairy's father-in-law, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The 140-vote win is neither here nor there. There were 160 votes spoilt, surprisingly the same number as postal votes. This is dubbed in UMNO as "Khairy's election". And Khairy Jamaluddin had set the tone: UMNO would get a 700 vote majority, and Dato' Ibrahim Ali, a former UMNO leader who has been expelled and stood as an independent, would get less than 500 votes. Khairy Jamaluddin could only deliver the second of his promises. Dato' Ibrahim Ali lost 1,100 votes less than he received in 2004. UMNO brought in 3,800 votes from elsewhere who were registered to vote in the constituence. Pemuda UMNO and Puteri Umno said they were in control of the 2,000 new voters. UMNO should have got at least 6,900 vote majority, nearly ten times more than it had predicted, but got less than the postal votes. The efficient National Front propaganda machine has called it a victory, nevertheless, and the newspapers reported it as such and how the PAS state government in Kelantan is dithering because of it.

But that meeting laid the ground work for the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, to insist the June UMNO supreme council agreed on a similar plan for Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib to be elected UMNO president and deputy president without contest. It has gone further. All state liaison committees are informed by UMNO headquarters that nominations for the two must be total; no one else must be nominated. The acclaimed UMNO unity is a myth. Pak Lah struggles to keep the party together. The warlords are on the rampage. Even Puteri Umno now insists on contest for all positions, including the top two.

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