The careful statements Dr Mahathir is in control is to save face. He desperately needs to host the Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit in Putra Jaya in October 2003. The government has spent nearly RM1.5 billion so far for the ultramodern convention centre and villas for the delegation heads. But the stewardship is flawed when his own trusted lieutenants challenge him. He should have resigned and left the scene. Does he think he would be treated with the respect he deserves when he hosts the OIC as his last hurrah? President Richard Nixon wanted nothing more in office than preside over the US centennial celebrations in 1976; he was forced to resign over the Watergate caper four years earlier.

In Malay feudal tradition, when this happens it is proof enough that the ground shifts, often dramatically, against the feudal lord. So, when he pointed out to what he did for Malaysia -- the huge and costly icons of Mahathir's Malaysia which include the Petronas Twin Towers, Putra Jaya, the KL Tower, and others -- and asked the delegates to forgive him for what he could not achieve, hoping his successors would, it did not elicit the response it normally would. So when he talked of meritocracy and English, And of his fundamentalist Islamic worldview's superiority over PAS's. None got the support he hoped, most delegates beliving that since this would be his last, or last but one, general assembly, let this be his swan song. Let him talk as he wants. Let him go in his blaze of glory. We shall return in the coming years to force his successor to change tack.

Next year, Dr Mahathir would preside over the meeting of Islamic heads of state in Putra Jaya. He must, as courtesy, invite the Pope to Malaysia, and it is a safe bet, if the Pope's health allows it, he would before the general elections expected next year. Dr Ling believes the Dalai Lama's visit would make the Chinese community forget its frustrations at the MCA, and vote the BN in with a larger majority. Even if the Shankaracharya cannot visit, Malaysian Indians are told they are better than they are depicted, whose contributions to the nation are ignored in the stereotyping of Indians.

What you see is not what you see. This is the principle on which the National Front (BN) government runs this country. We are broke. But we spend billions of ringgit in a spree of purchases and investments, none of which can be justified under prudent management. The government insists we are flush with cash. Ministers announce projects worth billions of ringgit without Parliament providing the funds. The biggest block of debt is its takeover of privatised companies, absorbing the debt, and often returning them to the same managers who created the mess. Every one has failed. You name it. It has: MAS, IWK, LRT, Putra, KLIA, Bakun Dam, MISC, TNB, PLUS, Putra Jaya. You could well add another dozen or more to it.

Be that as it may, Dr Mahathir decides the longer Dr Ling continues in office, the more that redounds on him as UMNO and BN head. We are given to understand he ordered both Dr Ling and Dato' Seri Lim to meet him in Putra Jaya last Saturday. He did not. Dr Ling wanted to meet him, and came with his usual lieutenants and cabinet ministers, Dato' Ong Ka Ting and Dato' Fong Chee Onn. But only Dr Ling was allowed in. The other two cooled their heels in the waiting room. We do not know what transpired, but Dr Ling was dabbing his reddening eyes with his handkerchief when he left.

The state has cut down its commitement to clean water. It privatised it to a crony linked to an UMNO vice president and former mentri besar. The cost of water rose, followed by a water shortage. The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, takes issue with me when I alleged, not without having seen the evidence, that Selangor's water shortage at the time was caused by the need to fill the man-made lake in Putra Jaya as quickly as possible with fresh water.

No, the BN would do nothing of that. It allowed state executive councillors to enrich themselves and drag their feet over low cost houses. Often approvals are made so the state executive councillors could themselves have their fill of low cost houses: one had 24; one, on his sudden death, was found to have 15; many had five or six each; which they sold at a premium of RM10,000 or more to the RM25,000 cost. So, it is best in federal hands. Let us look what happens where federal writ runs: Kuala Lumpur. Could the housing minister tell us how many low cost units have been built in the federal terrority, where presumably the problems he cites for the state's reluctance do not apply? These low cost houses are not built for the same reason of greed that makes it impossible for low cost houses to be built in the states. Where are the low cost houses in Putra Jaya, whose developers, Petronas, forgot all about it. It is only middle class houses that are built there. What would happen is that shanty towns would develop around Putra Jaya that would be an eyesore in the years to come.

But Dato' Seri Najib became an useful ally in his perennial search for a successor, and he was brought back to defence. He closes his eyes to what the minister's wife does. In Malaysia, all is forgiven if on the side of He Who Thinks He Is Lord Of All He Surveys. Corruption it is if you and I or Dato' Seri Anwar did but not those basking in the Great Man's benevolent gaze. So, Dato' Seri Anwar goes to jail for what the MCA president and transport minister, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, is lauded. Sergeant Senapang bin Peluru goes to Sungei Buloh or Kajang for which Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz goes to Putra Jaya.

What should be important is not funny pieces of paper we are over the years forced to sign -- the Rukun Negara; Leadership by Example; the Clean, Efficient and Trustworthy campaign, to name just three, and extinct as the dodo -- but the social contract the BN promised in its elections campaigns. That it jettisons the moment it is returned, insist it could do as it liked, without Parliamentary oversight, cheerfully leading the country in bankruptcy, but any who challenges it are traitors. So the cronies of the establishment makes hay and the people pay for it. The debris and detritus of this -- MAS, MBSB, Renong, UEM, Berjaya, Ekran, Perwaja, the Bakun Dam, the privatised highways, the building of Putra Jaya, KLIA, the F-1 motor racing circuit, to name a few -- amplifies the BN government's disdain for its own election promises of a fair deal for Malaysians.

But his larger vision of an Islamic state now haunts him. He has designs of Malaysia as the centre of the next Islamic empire after the Ottomans. To prove it, he spends a minimum of RM1,000 million to build a convention centre and 85 mini palaces in Putra Jaya for the Organisation of Islamic Countries conference next year. The convention hall alone is, without furnishings, RM700 million. His description of Malaysia as an Islamic state is in line with that. And to prove his credentials he was not beyond getting involved in funding Islamic militancy. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. And he could not get the Islamic nations to accept him as a comrade-in-arms if he was not about to do what they do.

When Parliament never discussed the setting up of Putra Jaya, the new administrative capital, because it was built by an off-budget agency, Petronas, why should it discuss a commercial disaster even if it has links with the government? The ministers involved get amnesia when asked about it, and with a press that dare not question -- especially when every one of the mainstream press is owned or controlled by one or other component member of the National Front, political and corporate opennes is for the birds in Malaysia.

Newspapers highlight Malaysian criticism of US wrongdoings in the Carribean Gulag points to a confidence crisis within. The newspapers, a mere government voice, leave clues all over its pages that my first information of political developments often is buried in a long story on, say, horticulture. Sometimes it is more direct. The high level talks between representatives of the two men who matter today in Malaysian politics, one in self-inflicted imprisonment in Putra Jaya and the other in court-ordered imprisonment in Sungei Buloh, is denied.

The reporters and editorial staff went on strike, and those who did not refused to allow their bylines to be used. Quickly The Sun came to look more like the New Straits Times without its new found verve. Circulation dropped. Tan Sri Vincent Tan, however smart his crony connexions led him to, is always caught out when he confronts journalists. But he believes that his friendship with those with offices in Putra Jaya would rescue him each time. They have not. He gets nervous. And he sacks reporters and staff with abandon, claiming poor economic conditions for his actions. He denies promised bonuses and salary rises. He closes down the bureaus, except Penang, and 60, including most bureau chiefs, sacked. More are likely. Dato' Lingam went about his sackings with no thought to contracts its signed, and those sacked in the first flush are members of the National Union of Journalists. This got the Human Resources Ministry to complain.

This Dr Mahathir could not, would not, and now cannot. His future in Putra Jaya is conditioned by what happens to the man in Sungei Buloh prison.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamed, is a frustrated man these days. He is what makes Malaysia move, and to make that stick, no mainstream newspaper would dare write what happens, only so the Emperor in Putra Jaya would not be offended. Trying to second guess his thoughts is a chancy business, as several former editors-in-chief of UMNO-controlled newspapers can attest. Often, the Bernama version of an event is printed, if for no reason than to mollify their mea culpas. The options narrow by the day. UMNO and the National Front has to come to terms with the reality that the young Malay, in the universities and out, are alienated from it.

Malaysia's favourite cash cow, Petronas, wants no more than run into debt as quickly as possible. This government-owned oil company now undertakes projects that cannot pay its way: it builds Putra Jaya, sponsors F-1 drivers and cars and with teams in rally car championships and the World Motorcycle Grand Prix, pays teachers' salaries, underwrites the government's image building not to show how good we are but how wasteful we can be. So it is no surprise to learn that Petronas now wants to acquire the Sepang F-1 Circuit from the government-owned Malaysian Airports Berhad (MAHB). MAHB says why: It offers Petronas "strategic advantages and synergies" which with its oil revenues wastes it on motorsport, sponsors the Malaysian round of the F-1 championship and co-sponsors the Sauber F-1 team.

The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, is upset and unhappy that he is forced to live in lonely spleandour in his spanking new palace in Putra Jaya, with only his deputy, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and the Chief Secretary, for company a heft stone's throw away. He is reduced to this state because the authorities delay unnecessarily issuing certificates of fitness without which the houses cannot be occupied. When you are I buy a house, it is our standard complaint that the certificates would not be issued when houses are handed over. We all know why, and take quick steps to ensure that these unofficial conditions are met. The prime minister obviously does not know these procedures, and his officials unwilling to be the first to tell him what they are. After all, Hari Raya Aidil Fitri comes soon, and expenses are heavy ...

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