The PPP was brought into the National Front 33 years ago when the tripartite Alliance became the multi-party National Front. After it was taken over by the Indians, the then Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, created conditions in the National Front for the PPP to represent the Indians as well. This has not worked well, partly because the PPP president, Mr Kayveas, took for granted the support of the Indian community, and is now no worse than the MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, and both see their presence in the cabinet for the Indian community to be proud of. But the Indian community generally, especially the younger members, reject both. Datuk Samy Vellu owns or controls all the six or seven Tamil newspapers, which usually translates the government news that are published in the main English language newspapers, and publish in detail political and election news from Tamil Nadu in India. There used to Tamil newspapers owned by rivals to Dato' Samy Vellu but now are controlled, or owned, by him.

THE DEPUTY PRESIDENTS OF parties in the National Front, elected to office, are not liked by their presidents. In UMNO, Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, MCA, MIC, for example, the presidents believe they can ignore the membership. In MIC, the president goes one step further. He arranges so that the branches supporting the deputy president is struck off for the flimsiest of reasons, and rearrange these braches to be beholden to him. The deputy president, Dato' S. Subramaniam will not help the average member; in his interviews, he wants to succeed to the presidency by Buggins' turn, has no policy for its members, only wants to be president of MIC. Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu has already started. Those branches likely to be expelled has formed a new, irrelevant political party, MIC Baru. The news media reported it as a straight story, to show no doubt there is democracy in this.

THE PRIME MNISTER IS an Islamic scholar because he has a degree in Islamic studies, so goes the spin. But while he is a deeply religious man, as many are, even he would admit he is no scholar. He has been built into one when he became prime minister. Tun Mahathir is a doctor, a great one at that, although he stopped practicing more than 30 years ago. The health minister, Doctor Chua Soi Lek graduated as a doctor, but gave it up for politics about the same time. But both are described as medical doctors. News reports, then of Tun Mahathir and Dato' Chua now, speak of their expertise in medicine, but neither would admit to all that. Dato' Ling Liong Sik, a medical graduate from Singapore, gave up his medical practice about a quarter of a centry ago, but he was treated in office as if he knew more than the specialists at the University Hospital. Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, before he entered Parliament, was known for his brawn than brain; but today in office it is reversed.

This has grown worse over the years. The late Tun Hussein Onn, when prime minister, insisted that one political secretary was appointed to stay in, and look after, his constituency. The man was allowed to be in Kuala Lumpur only on Thursdays, when he had to report to the man about the constituency. He did such a good job that Tun Hussein was reputed to know his constituency well. And when he did, his political secretary succeed him, became a cabinet minister and retired to Kuala Lumpur. But he keeps his roots to the ground even now. But that is of the past. Few National Front politicians, not just ministers, do that now. The rare exception to this is the MIC leader, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, who goes to his constituency ever week when in the country, and gives his constituency goodies whethere it is needed or not.

But who should stop this go along? The non-Malay political parties in government will not lift their arm. Their leaders are more interested in being in the cabinet, and if that means stepping on the people they represent, then so be it. They do not service their constituences – a singular exception is Dato' Seri S, Samy Vellu – but the people vote them in every time. They see nothing, speak nothing, hear nothing. That is their defensive mechanism to stay in the cabinet. The local councils would not be elected, for this gives the National Front jobs for the boys. They much it up as expected, and get shocked when news of their shenanigans make the front pages of newspapers. But politics in this country has reached the stage where the racial groups do not support their leaders, but unite among themselves to oppose them. It will be a while, perhaps 2012, before they are a force. But the policies initated in the early 1970s has brought this about.

THE ELECTION IN PENGALEN Pasir was important for UMNO that it had its leaders virtually staying in the constituency for the campaigning. The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, for instance, was there virtually every day of the runup to the polls. The first reason is easily discernible: he did not want the Prime Minister's son-law and UMNO Youth deputy leader, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, steal a march over him in the Prime Ministerial stakes. The other reason, unmentioned, is that the voters took askance to the presence of the MCA President, Dato' Ong Kah Ting, the Gerakan President, Dato' Seri Lim Kheng Yaik, the MIC President, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, even the former MCA President, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik. During the campaign, the newspapers which supported each of them were talking of how they brought in the Chinese and Indian votes in the constituency. But the reality is that the non-Malay communities did not want them. But the National Front is a multiracial coalition, and it would be disastrous if the non-Malay constituencies did not not support them. Dato' Seri Najib was also in constituency to make sure of the non-Malay vote. This is not how it was portrayed. The Star, for instance, reported how the Chinese came out to vote because of the efforts of the MCA past and present MCA presidents. The Chinese and Indian voters in Pengkalen Pasir believed the UMNO deputy president more they believed their own leaders.

It is so with the other parties in the Alliance. The Malayan Indian Congress was formed in 1946 to fight for Indian independence. When India did become independent the following year, the MIC president became India's ambassador to Rome and the Vatican while several committee members became the first ambassadors to other countries. It reoriented itself to Malayan independence only after the next president, a KL lawyer named K. Devasar, took office. In 1952, Malaysia ceased to be an immigrant nation, and those who had come before 30 April of that year was allowed to become Malayans. Those living in the country were allowed to become subjects of the ruler and automatically became Federal citizens. My father became a Johore subject that way. He had included my name in his citizenship as I was 13 at that time. I could use that in 1956 to get my federal citizenship. He was not an MIC member because the prevailing rules then gave preference to the North Indians as it is the Tamils today. He was a Dato' Onn supporter, partly because he knew the man, and hosted him in our house when he stood for what is now four constituencies in the 1955 federal elections. The MIC took a downturn with the third president, Tun V.T. Sambanthan, who took office in 1954, was in the Alliance team which went to London to negotiate for Malaysia's independence, and was in the cabinet on independence, but remained 20 years as MIC president till 1974, when he was forced out. The next president, Tan Sri V. Manickavasagam, in office for about five years, drew up plans to uplift the Indian community, the Blue Book, but he reasoned rightly that it had no money. He died in office, and his successor, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, in office since 1979, implements the ideas contained in the Blue Book to his benefit and to the detriment of the Indian community he leads. He is hostile to those who wrote the Blue Book. Which is why he did not have a good word for either the late S. Pathmanaban or the current deputy, Dato' S. Subramaniam. He now takes a leaf out of UMNO by not wanting his deputy, and has his own choice in this year's election. He is in the cabinet where he could ask for the Indian community to be helped. But he dare not if it means his position in it is affected. So he goes along with UMNO, and the Indian community must fend for itself. The People's Progressive Front, formed by the Seenivasagam brothers in the 1960s, and a Indian party with multiracial members was brought in to keep the Indians within the National Front. But it does not work.

It is the same with Deepavali. Gone are the days when you respected Deepavali by religious observances. It was a strictly family affair. I do not celebrate Deepavali. But I mark it by an oil bath and prayers, either at home or at the temple nearby. We do not prepare for the day, although we would prepare cakes and savories for the odd visitor. The MIC is in the forefront of turning Deepavali into a commercial success. Its president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, is busy shouting his head off on the lack of sufficient Indian stalls for Deepavali, refusing to realise it is a religious festival. The MIC controls everything that is Indian in the National Front's eye, and its goons prevent others from a view in public that is contrary to it. It controls all the Hindu organisations, and these organisations will not advise him or protest at this commercialisation of Deepavali. Very soon, Deepavali and Hari Raya would become institutionalised, and business would take over, as Christmas has become worldwide even in countries that are not Christian.

I keep talking of UMNO and the National Front. That is because the non-Malay parties in the National Front have exchanged office for decades by reneging on why they are in National Front in the first place. The MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, is the second longest in cabinet, having been in it since 1979, but he is now blaming in public the government in which he is a member of not doing enough for the Indian community. He is trying to win back the support of the Indian community, not all of whom are MIC members, because they are other claimants, and they are not necessarily other political parties. He tries to order the succession so that his man will succeed him in Cabinet. This is so in MIC and Gerakan. The Chinese and Indian people do not trust their political parties any more, as MCA, Gerakan and MIC looks after their members and very few else. UMNO will soon be in that position. The Malay on reaching maturity goes to UMNO if he wants to make lots of money and to PAS if he wants a career in politics. If this goes on for a few years, UMNO will be in trouble. An UMNO member high up in the party told me that by 2015, the party would be in the opposition. If UMNO is in trouble, the other political parties in the National Front would follow.

Contrast that with the Chinese and Indians. They are cut off the education mainstream, and survive on their wits. Their children are educated at their expense, and those who graduate know they have to cut their own path. The biggest employer in Malaysia – the public service, the armed forces, the police, statutory bodies and government-linked companies, amongst others – employ only Malays, the occasional non-Malay employed for decoration. So the Chinese cut their own path, survive with a panache, and all but find their place in the private sector. The Indian fares even worse than the Malay because he survives at the mercy of the MIC leader, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, and he is not interested in them unless they owe total allegiance to him and MIC.

When they are treated with utter contempt by the people, they invent slogans to make the people change. If I were to collect a ringgit for every such attempt, I would be a rich man indeed today! The habitual late comers are the BN leaders, and ambitious politicians. I would not, and have not, for years attended a function were the MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu threatens to attend. At one of the last I attended, after waiting for a few hours, we were blithely told, he was away in India. He is not typical. Every cabinet minister is guilty of it. If they can be as arrogant in their public face, why should one expect them to rigorous in their official duties? When state titles are given out so the state's chief minister can be elected a party vice-president, what moral right does he have to tell us to be righteous and moral? Others follow their habits, and soon we are a dysfunctional Malaysian society. The signs of that are everywhere. Those politicians who wail about it in public now are who allowed the rot in. The TNB scandals are but one small example of it.

Now he has a more difficult problem on his hands. Parliament is up in arms over yet another rise in toll rates on the North South Expressway. The National Front (BN) MPs demanded to know why when traffic has risen eight times, and the concession is more profitable than it had planned for. The works minister, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, was at a loss for words at the unexpected ferociousness when he was questioned by BN – UMNO – MPs, and angered them the more when he shifted blame for it to the cabinet which approved the charges to absolve him and his ministry, that the government cannot go on subsidising toll payers but would not release to the House the concession agreements, totally one-sided to benefit the concessionaires, which allows them to be recompensed if the toll rate increases are not met on time. But he forgot one important point: that he cannot blame others for what happens in his watch.

It does not matter if Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu blames the finance ministry for his ministry's deficiences; but that he attacks the finance minister of the time – his former patron, Dr Mahathir – is proof his own political future is cloudy as it should have been a decade ago. The UMNO president of the day prefers another Indian to represent the community. Dato' Seri Samy hopes to prevent that by biting the political hand that fed him. He hopes Pak Lah would see this treachery as proof he can be relied upon. But he, like every BN party president, overstates his political importance. He is but another door mat for the UMNO president to step on. The intrigues within would have made the Byzantine court proud. But the BN emperor is encircled by a hostile enemy, the people, as surely as the Ottomans laid seige of Constantinople city walls with an entrapped Byzantium emperor inside. What frightens the BN emperor even more is that he is cornered in his city walls as securely by his Ottoman emperor, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Malaysia's sycophantic press are past masters of this culture of official intentions, carrots and sticks. It reports with the same breathlessness as scientific papers revealling a discovery or invention, but to brown nose the UMNO president of the day. The editorials often is an extension of it. Criticism is only when Putra Jaya allows it. The works minister, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, can be as his public works chickens come home to roost. His bad odour with Pak Lah is well known, so he is fair game. As cabinet ministers not close to him or are his political rivals.

One thing you could not in Myanmar and could here is how cabinet ministers interact. Ministerial verbal diarrhoea, and mainstream media vomit, often tells you more than acres of newsprint. Let us look at a few examples. The works minister, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, was mercilessly taken to task for the failure of several public works projects which crony companies built without official supervision.

But that would be only one light in a sea of darkness. The Kepong flyover is the first few of the hurried public works scandals of the past two decades, built on privatisation schemes in which the contractor, not the government, decided what they would cost and charge. No thought was given to the ability of the citizen and public to pay for it. The shoddy work, of which the Kepong flyover, condemned only two years after construction, is overshadowed by the infighting between the works minister, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, and his cabinet colleagure, the transport minister, Dato' Seri Chan Kong Choy, which is strange since the cabinet had by then agreed on what to do.

THE WORKS MINISTER, DATO' Seri S. Samy Vellu, is what the Malaysian cabinet is: he is there by the Grace of God; he can say what he likes and get away with it; he does not care how stupid he can be and often is nor how outrageous his statements; he represents the might of a geriatric cabinet that should have been; and believes that two decades and more in office gives me the right to ignore political and other realities.

Now, the Cabinet is told of cracks that closed down a 1.7 km flyover along the Middle Ring Road. The works minister, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, is unfazed by it all. He admits cracks on the flyover were "not normal" but "we cannot expect 100 per cent success all the time". He explains it could have happed because of soil or road or other conditions. But given the volume of traffic and use, that it would be heavily used was beyond doubt. That was why the flyover was planned in the first place. The volume of traffic was too high that the cracks could not be monitored. So the flyover had to be shut down.

The MIC president wants to destroy his deputy president; for a start, he refused to give him his parliamentary constituency in the March general election; now the push is on to have him removed from his office. But the deputy president is close to the prime minister, and removing him from his post would not be wise. So, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu has promised to expel any memberf who questions his deputy's role. There are other similar examples in other political parties in BN.

Mr Khairy's former partner was Dato' Seri Mohd Khir Toyo, the Selangor mentri besar. The UMNO heirarchy decided he was an upstart, even with Mr Khairy as his running mate. UMNO leaders, unless they are related to the supreme leader or is blessed by him, know fully well they can progress according to Buggins' Turn. Dr Khir is frozen out. Dato' Hishamuddin suddenly saw the light, and with Mr Khairy as his running mate, hope to be returned unopposed. This is the ideal election result: where one is returned unopposed. If one can be for two decades and more, and if there should be someone rash enough to challenge the leader, more creatives methods, which I need not name, are often used. The master in this art is the MIC leader, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu.

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