Even Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, she whose son-in-law proves her vision of merit by getting from her ministry enough APs to earn a few millions of ringgit without any effort than marry her daughter, says merit as the new rallying cry "would serve to prove the Malays could compete with others without special privileges" ... Why can't we compete with the best?" she asked, and add the curious rider that most Malay leaders rose by way of merit. Perhaps she might want to enlighten us how many Malay leaders she extols rose to where they are by sheer merit, and practice what they preach to insist their children not accept government scholarship if they had less than desirable grades.

The government does not tell what happened; it only echoes what UMNO has to say. Dr Mahathir insists his administration echo UMNO's views, one in which he can only run for his political life. When rumours surfaced that the former Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Noor, had beaten up the handcuffed and blindfolded just arrested Anwar, it was vigorously denied. Dr Mahathir and the UMNO Wanita leader, Datin Rafidah Aziz, said Anwar had beat himself up. Since then they were proved wrong, Rahim is in jail. Neither Dr Mahathir nor Rafidah apologised.

Does Dr Mahathir target the rich as part of a long-term plan to make UMNO more important than the government it leads? The UMNO Wanita leader, Datin Rafidah Aziz, gave the game away when she insisted recently that UMNO must always control the government, not the other way around.

Some ministers would move on to new portfolios. The international trade and industry minister, Datin Rafidah Aziz, is one. Her new portfolio is uncertain, as whether she would be retired altogether. Tan Sri Muhammad Taib is widely spoken of as her successor. She is a Mahathir loyalist long in the tooth and unpopular with both UMNO rank and file and the women's wing she heads. The minister in the prime minister's department, Dato' Rais Yatim, could get independent charge of a new justice or law ministry.

The opposition, poorly funded, less inclined to raise the little profile it has, dug into the villages and house-to-house, ignoring the National Front taunts to raise national issues that strike a chord. They understood the voters must be convinced they could deliver, which they did by raising few politicial issues often and ad nauseum, sinking the message with repetition. For the Malay, the federal-state crisis over the Trengganu royalties, the humiliation and demonisation of Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the jailed former deputy prime minister. For the Chinese, there is the botched Vision Schools, which Chinese educationists effectively demolished. Its biggest problem is to convince the Indian, though the murky circumstances of the state assemblyman's murder that brought this byelection about could well give it more votes than the MIC hopes. And corruption as a general issue. In Lunas, as elsewhere, corruption is a problem. So, it struck a chord. Which is why Datin Rafidah Aziz, the international trade and industry minister, denied allegations she is corrupt, indeed is incorruptible, even if the Attorney-General prepares charges, ready in a week, to filed once ordered to from high above. The Malays want the Prime Minister to convince them of his promise to root out corruption by going after the more blatant corrupters in his cabinet.

UMNO wanted a new women's wing of younger professionals out of place in UMNO Wanita, whose leaders like UMNO's are a self-perpetuating oligarchy. Its central committee includes those elected in 1982 and earlier. New blood is brutally drained out, to leave in disgust. The younger professionals are left out, and Puteri UMNO, set up for them, was to be a feeder for Wanita. But Wanita leaders are frightened of an organised group of young women who could leave them high and dry if they so decide. The new blood in UMNO Wanita is the return of the old guard, led by its leader, Datin Rafidah Aziz!

The Malaysian international trade and industry minister, Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, is in the United States to drum up investment. Malaysia wants foreign investment, but on her own terms. Foreigners should not question -- "had no right", in her own words, to question -- how the Malaysian judiciary woks: it is impartial and independent. Never mind that few concerned parties outside the government and unfortunate liigants do not think so. But the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, whatever the spin put on it, is why most foreign investment and contracts with Malaysians insist upon arbitration in foreign countries in a dispute. Singapore is the preferred choice. No foreign investor would invest hundreds of millions of ringgit in Malaysia and lose it in a dispute if his Malaysian partner is a prominent business man or if his lawyer goes on holidays with the chief justice. That is not all. Contrary to the spin Malaysian officials put on ministerial foreign investment visits, foreign investors hold Malaysia to ransom, demanding better facilities than the law allows. Motorole, for instance, threatened to relocate its investments in Malaysia in Vietnam. It got what it wanted, and better than those who come in under tax holidays or investment incentives. The Prime Minister had to plead with them in the United States to stay, giving them the investment guarantees they asked for.

Dr Jamaluddin insists his interest in EPE would be in a blind interest -- that famous Bolehland institution of business men-politicians in sensitive official positions put their shareholdings and business interests into in which the trustee, not the trust, must be blind. Should the Tenage board decide on a project in which EPE is one of the parties, what would the non-executive chairman do? Stay in place but not vote, as the international trade and industry minister, Datin Rafidah Aziz did, when her ministry awarded a lucrative contract to a company controlled by her son-inlaw? Or vote for EPE, since a blind trustee runs that for him? Whether he is competent or not -- he is -- is not the issue. He is appointed as a trusted National Front nominee. It is this that rankles. After letting Tenage run professionally and competently at a time when political decisions reduced its competence and competitiveness, replacing its chiefs on political and other whims, bringing in a politician must throw doubts about official internetions towards Tenaga.

His import is clear: to bring the police back to its pre-Anwar neutrality and restore its battered, tattered image of thuggery and gangsterism to a law abiding force that one could look up to. He wants to go after wrong doers. If they happen to be opposition members, it is not, as the Prime Minister would say, because it targets them, but because the fellows have done wrong. How could the likes of the Prime Minister and his cabinet do wrong as the opposition is capable of? Even Dato' Jamil cannot forget the National Front's dominance in his life as a police officer. The speed with which the police reached its prima facie conclusion on Dato' Seri Anwar's possible false police report is impressive. But it raises a few niggardly if awkward questions. Since its normal investigations revealed Anwar's possible crime over the police report, the police would no doubt have completed its investigations on police reports alleging corrupt practice by the Prime Minister, finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin, international trade and industry minister Datin Rafidah Aziz, Tan Sri Eric Chia and others.

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