This is likely to be the trend in future elections: this attempt to improve the electoral turnout to prove how involved Malaysians are in elections. The BN and its predecessor, the Alliance, has been returned in every general election since 1955. In the last 30 years, it had had been returned in three quarters and more of the constituencies. Once in power they ignore the voter who elected them into office. It worked when the Malays were united. They are not now, thanks to a near cripple in Sungei Buloh. The BN and UMNO must prove their relevance by being returned to power in ever large turnouts, reaching limits that Mr Josef Stalin could only drool at.

It sent the frightening message to the world that in Malaysia anyone who challenged the prime minister or the BN coalition he heads, be he politician, businessman, citizen, foreign or local, should expect short shrift at the courts. For as the years go by, it was Dato' Seri Anwar's challenge of the then prime minister, Tun (then Dato' Seri) Mahathir Mohamed, that landed him in Sungei Buloh and as a near paraplegic. All else is spin. The government insists he is a common criminal. He is not, although the courts convicted him. He is convicted not for his alleged crimes but for his politics.

Who could have the reach and the gumption to make sure Pak Lah is blamed. To save his skin, Pak Lah has to deny he is involved. I know one who could fit the bill admirably buy is however otherwise occupied. He lives in pain in a prison cell in Sungei Buloh, confined to a wheel chair. He is, in the considered view of Pak Lah and the government he leads, a repobrate, a no-hoper, a has-been, untrustworthy, capable of putting the country into disrepute by wanting to destroy its leaders. Just the sort of man, I would think, who could place orders such as this to put the BN and Pak Lah into disrepute.

He is 67. So this is his last crack at the UMNO presidency that was denied him in 1987; he won it, but like the Democratic presidential candidate, Mr Al Gore, in the 2000 presidential election who won the popular vote but it was the Republican loser, Mr George W. Bush, who became president. He has had support from several power groups in the party, who switched to him because, for varying reasons, they did not want to be aligned with Pak Lah. The 'invisible man' in Sungei Buloh aka Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim has instructed his supporters in UMNO to align with the Hermit. Could he win? Does it matter? The challenge has devalued Pak Lah's candidacy. If the Hermit wins or loses, Pak Lah is the loser.

It is a good move. The government should begin right now. I can suggest one man who has more dato'ships than he knows what to do with. He is a convict. Jailed for 15 years for corruption and sodomy. A common criminal, insists the court which put him in Sungei Buloh, and the appeal courts; and so the man who put him there, and his successor. The man insists he is there for his politics. But he forgets one inalienable fact of Malaysian life: Malaysian courts are upright in administering justice. It does not matter if your and I or even the chap in Sungei Buloh disagrees. All that matters is the government insists it is. And so it is ordained. The BN and UMNO establishment. insists he is a nobody. So he must be. No one cares if he lives or dies. Since the dato'ships of suspected criminals are revoked, the case is strong for those awarded to a master criminal, as this man undoubtedly is, is too.

He has not said why. But it centres on how the UMNO establishment conspired to destroy its deputy president, and the country's deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in 1998. The cultural shockwaves in UMNO and in the Malay community continues unabated as Dato' Seri Anwar fights a brilliant campaign from his prison cell in Sungei Buloh to force UMNO leaders to look over their shoulders in fear even as they insist he is history. The more he looms large, the the more nervous and frightened are those who had even cameo roles in his political and personal destruction. Mr Alies Anor was one of them. His was then already political secretary to Dato' Seri Najib, and headed a sub-commitee to ensure Dato' Seri Anwar's political demise.

It wants the courts to put the matter to rest once and for all. But the courts blinked too, when it scraped the bottom of the barrel to get judges who would convict without compunction. So unpopular and legally unquestionably were their judgements that some judges have round-the-clock police protection, not that they have been threatened but that, in the paranoia that suffuses in the government over Dato' Seri Anwar, they could be. If it wanted to destroy Dato' Seri Anwar once and for all, it should have pulled all stops and rushed the cases through. It did not. For a good reason. As the case wend its way through the courts, even cabinet ministers and senior UMNO leaders realised that this single minded humiliation of the man could redound on them. Worse, the mass prayers that Dato' Seri Anwar's supporters called for - the sembayang hajat - frightened many officials who allowed themselves to be active in his destruction. Two judges contacted the families for forgiveness, but they would not go to Sungei Buloh and face Dato' Seri Anwar. One died. The other is unsettled to the point of paranoia. One prosecutor has become slow in his reaction. And in court during one of the numerous appeals, he asked Dato' Seri Anwar for forgiveness.

THE SELANGOR MENTRI BESAR, Dato' Seri Mohamed Khir Toyo, will have no National Front (BN) candidate if the Anti-Corruption Agency finds his or her background murky. The candidates are not selected yet, but the ACA, superbly efficient when it wants to or political duty calls, have found them all to be clean as a whistle. No one has asked how a political party could ask a supposedly independent government agency to do its dirty work in front of a general election. Does this mean that if the ACA does it for Selangor, it does for all BN controlled states? Is this then the first step to require all candidates, in Parliament and the states, to obtain an ACA clearance before they could contest? But it is also to impress voters of the strict selection process of candidates, but it does not fool the voter. It is a silly move as can be. But selecting candidates is a nightmare for the BN president and Malaysian prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. He is heir to a flawed system which he cannot change, that those who should be out must be in for his political safety. The public anger at some of the candidates is real. So subterfuges like this to show all is well. Expected to be candidates are several whose rightful place is the Sungei Buloh prison, but if that were so, the BN edifice collapse.

It would have continued this way but for how the then Prime Minister, Dato' Seri (now Tun) Mahathir Mohamed, destroyed and humiliated in 1998 his chosen successor, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, now reeling in pain in his cell in Sungei Buloh prison. It caused the first major shift in Malay thinking since independence. The Malay, with his acute sense of justice and fair play, and shocked beyond belief, moved away from UMNO's political and cultural protection. He remains on the sidelines waiting to see who the winner is before he commits himself to that side. UMNO and the coalition it leads, BN, has tried its best to wean them back, without success. It is this that enabled the Opposition political parties, especially PAS, to make headway. The Malay vote is split, and the BN cannot depend on it anymore. Hence in the general election, all focus is on the Chinese vote, now solidly with the BN even if the leaders of the Chinese political parties are in bad odour with the new Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. UMNO's strong-armed control of the BN political partners has no principle behind it, but a vague sense of political unity which is not sustained with reasoned thought. This, to be fair, is not with BN alone. Every political party, in BN and the Opposition, are guilty of it. In the opposition it is not as critical since they do not hold power, and it has the luxury of internal debate. Even then, a few, like the DAP, does not allow too much of it.

I would pity the answer if it was linked in any way with a former DPM who now resides in a cell in Sungei Buloh prison. If it was, then the opposition really is doomed, preying on issues that are only communal or seasonal and actually not having anything new or alternative really to challenge the BN’s stranglehold. If we really want change, then perhaps we should actually look at improving the way the BA is going to perform in future, and not look only into the shortfalls which we claim might have occurred with the government.

There is only one problem with this report. It is untrue. Mr Saifuddin did not call on Pak Lah to talk about joining UMNO. He had gone to request Pak Lah's help to allow Dato' Seri Anwar get urgent medical attention. The medical specialists had warned the director of Sungei Buloh prison of Dato' Seri Anwar's deteriorating medical condition, but his hands were tied. Only the Minister of Home Affairs could allow it. Since Mr Saifuddin is still on good terms with Pak Lah, Dato' Seri Anwar asked him to request permission for treatment. Mr Saifuddin agreed to keep the meeting with Pak Lah secret. He kept his promise until the NST report yesterday. His aides clearly did not think so, and tried to impute into the meet what was not.

At first glance, Pak Lah's first 100 days is no different from his predecessors'. But the similarities stop there. The past four prime ministers were their own men. They made the same kind of statements Pak Lah now makes, with this difference. Even if they attained office before elections, there is no doubt of their legitimacy in office. Pak Lah, on the other hand and lest we forget, is an accidental Prime Minister. He is where he is because the man who should have been there was too eager to take the mantles of office that he lost his political cool, and is now in Sungei Buloh prison for his pains. It would not have mattered if Pak Lah had succeeded him, if he he had been suspended or expelled. But Tun Mahathir wanted to make an example of him to warn UMNO leaders he would not tolerate mutinies like Dato' Seri Anwar planned. So he had UMNO concoct corruption and sodomy charges - it does not matter if he is guilty as charged, but how the judiciary, the police, the Attorney-General's Chambers cast caution to the winds and allowed the injustice to stick so he would be humiliated in the process backfired - and in his eagerness to destroy him fell foul of two important traits in the Malay: his feudal cultural horror at a leader humiliating his chieftains and his inordinate sense of justice; both caused the Malay to retire to the political sidelines whilst UMNO sorted itself out. So far it has not. To do that, the man wronged must be made free. UMNO under Pak Lah is in no mood for that. There begins his first major recipe for political disaster.

THE DATE OF THE GENERAL election is at the absolute discretion of the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. But he cannot announce it without first making sure his National Front (BN) and UMNO are ready. This is when it begins to unravel. Nothing is secret in this city, and soon all political parties are aware of it, and plan for it. In the past, the BN's dominance, especially within the Malay community, was so dominant, that even if the date was known, there was little the Opposition could do to force it off its perch. Those were the days. Today, the BN is assured of its two-thirds majority only if the Chinese community backs it wholeheartedly. The Malay is on the sidelines, after the political destruction and personal humiliation of its former deputy president, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. He wants more proof of the BN's political intentions, and on how it intends to right the wrongs he sees implicit in why the former deputy prime minister continues to be in Sungei Buloh prison. The plans as it stand is for Parliament to be dissolve on 01 March and for polling on 20 March.

Could it when the political divide has all but destroyed the state, with neither willing to give way, or even attempt a compromise? Neither talks to the other. It does not matter now if Dato' Seri Anwar is guilty of the charges against him. The prosecution handled their case so ineptly, and the judges eschewing judicial principles to convict not just the prisoner but his lawyers for daring to defend him as they must, that whatever the final judgement is, this doubt that he is framed for an out-of-turn bid for power and not for why he is in Sungei Buloh prison. What must worry the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is that the Malay community is more divided now than at the time of the arrest, and the reformasi demonstrations. Giving him bail now would only break ranks when it cannot afford to.

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