Does he really mean what he says? In the Trengganu state assembly earlier this year, when the PAS government tabled an administration of Islam bill, by the Prime Minister's reckoning, the BN (mostly UMNO) opposition should have voted against. They did not. They abstained. Why? And why did not the BN or UMNO initiate disciplinary proceedings against them as they now demand against the Penang duo. Or is what is allowed UMNO disallowed MCA? Besides, the BN chief whip did not instruct the BN state assemblymen in Penang as, almost certainly, in Trengganu on how it should vote. When he did not, the accepted parliamentary rule is vote according to one's conscience. The BN cannot act against the duo for two reasons: it has no constitutional authority, and the BN whip slept on his job. The more the BN harps on it, the more Chinese support it would lose.

The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, says Kelantan, under a PAS administration, received RM1 billion in Federal funds, or a third of its allocation under the Eighth Malaysia Plan, or one-thirtieth the amount the crony-controlled Renong Berhad lost. He says this showed the State's population is not left out of the mainstream of development. It is proof, he infers, that even under a PAS-led government, the Federal government would not desert the people. In Trengganu, also PAS-run, it is another story: there the State Government is deliberately starved of funds it is entitled to, and what is rightfully its is spent by the federal government to ensure it is defeated in the next general election. But when the Malaysian deputy prime minister visits the Opposition-run states, he deals not with the state government but with UMNO officials an federal departments in the state. PAS does not deserve federal help but the people should not be penalised for exercising their democratic vote to elect a government of their choice.

Now with UMNO in near shambles in the Malay heartland of Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and Parlis, it must depend on Johore, Sabah and Sarawak to see it through. Once, Sarawak and Sabah was not given its due seats under the Malaysia agreement; now BN and UMNO rush to give it more than its due, and hope that will keep it in office. If that is not enough, the 85 votes would at least give it an additional constituency. So, in this delineation exercise, most go to the three states.

The National Front (BN) federal government is shocked into apoplexy at PAS-run Trengganu's enactment of syariah (sharia) law. But it did not respond except to taunt and threaten. It kept the non-Malay out of the discussion by restricting criticising only to the Malay and Muslim. The chief police officer in Trengganu however is clear what he would do: he would desert his constitutional role by not assisting the state to enforce it. The Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Norian Mai, agrees. A day later, the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also home minister, concurs. It is living proof of how the tail wags the dog. The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, who is never at a loss for words, is strangely silent. Dato' Seri Abdullah would rather not talk about it when he concurred with the police. The government has no position on it. Instead, an UMNO appartchik and lawyer challenges the constitutionality of the Kelantan hudud laws, passed a decade ago, in the Federal Court. If he succeeds, the government could ride on its back to remove the Trengganu move. But could this be sustained?

This lurch into an Islamic agenda -- fundamentalist or not -- is a knee-jerk reaction to wean declining support from amongst the Malays. The role of the non-Malays are ignored, and it is now taken as read they do not matter. Since Malaysia does not encourage an open debate on these matters, and non-Muslims are all but threatened, as I am, for commenting on, for instance, the Trengganu syariah criminal bill, what we see, whether we like it or not, is the irreversible transformation of a multiracial and multicultural country into an inward looking Malay Muslim fundamentalist state in which the non-Malay survives on sufferance. UMNO is as guilty of this as PAS, neither prepared to allow non-Malay views in matters it deems Islamic.

The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, challenges the PAS state administration in Trengganu to refer its Syariah criminal enactment bill to the Attorney-General to attest its legality. Lawyers insist the state has no constitutional or legal authority to enact it. Women groups are up in arms. But none can do anything about it. The time for challenge is past. The National Front (BN) amended the character and form of the Federal constitution to give equal primacy to civil and syariah law. None objected when it was passed into law. The states now can enact Islamic criminah law as part of its powers in the administration of Islamic law. UMNO, when in power in Kelantan and Trengganu, set the ball rolling. And other states the BN controlled followed suit.

The Trengganu mentri besar, Dato' Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, is in no doubt opposition to the state's Hudud Bill, which provides for equality of the civil law with Islamic law, is misunderstood. If those opposed knew the "facts", they would not. Since they do not, he infers it is their duty to be, therefore, there is nothing wrong with the Syariah Criminal Bill. Women's organisations are horrified a rape who could not prove her rape could be guilty of slander and punished severely. The fundamental issue here is if the state assembly could pass a law that conflicts with the Federal constitution. It cannot. That it does means it can. The constitution is amended to give equal status to civil and Islamic law. Since the states are responsible for how Islam is administered in the states, they can enact laws that one they once could not. Which is why the National Front (BN) and UMNO cannot openly confront the Trengganu government on this. The BN is also committed to an Islamic state in Malaysia; indeed, the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, insists it already is.

There is no one group that has the intellectual stature that can formulate an opposition coalition without which it can never even aspire for more than a token representation in parliament and the state assemblies. PAS's victories in Kelantan in 1990 and Trengganu in 1999 has nothingn to do with the other political parties. Apart from PRM, no party in the Opposition has a national view. PAS concentrates its mind on the four former Thai Malay states -- Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Trenggau -- where its success is due partly to the defensive nature of protecting Islam from a distant capital; before 1903, it was Bangkok; now it is Kuala Lumpur. The presumption it can capture states other than the four remains just that.

Worse, the debate is to raise the ire of constituents than to discuss the basics. Whatever the constitution might insist, it is settled Malaysia is an Islamic state, the hudud law is here to stay, and all one can now do is to negotiate a less extreme punishment. UMNO, the main party in the National Front (BN), imposed hudud laws in Kelantan when it was in power there. When PAS defeated it in 1990, and enhanced the hudud laws, it was UMNO which cried foul. But it was UMNO which established the principles which PAS took advantage. So in Trengganu. The non-Malay partners in BN did not rigorously challenge these sharp constitutional changes, but now accuse PAS of pursuing an Islamic state when for PAS it is a hope while BN has the means to enforce it.

Malaysia, since the first general elections in 1955, have been governed by the National Front (BN), and its predecessor, the Alliance, with only Kelantan, Trengganu, Sabah and Sarawak the only four states which have had the Opposition in power. In other words, the BN, more specifically its dominant partner UMNO, decided what national policy is. Parliament is not that forum, since it is treated with contempt; it is only consulted as an after thought or if it is politically desirable for UMNO it should. So in the states, where the legislatures are not required to meet more than twice a year, and the BN government ensured it would not meet more often.

Especially when Akujanji refers only to the federal government. The PAS administrations in Kelantan and Trengganu are not involved, nor has this been discussed with Kota Bharu and Kuala Trengganu. The states it controls would follow suit, and force its civil servants into submission. What happens if, in the next general elections, some states turn out BN state governments? Is the compact automatically transferred to the non-BN government? What happens when, in the future, the BN loses control of the federal government? Would the new non-BN government then go on a witch hunt against those who signed the pact, as the BN government now threatens those who would not. If the BN is not careful, it can redound on its head with disastrous consequences.

In Malaysia, a law is not a law unless it becomes law in haste and amended in panic as its faults become too obvious. So, with this ban on ceremahs. The Suhakam reservations stuck a bone. The deputy prime minister and home minister, acting finance minister but not acting prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, wriggles out of it: Ceremahs could be held if the police allowed. Even the state governments of Trengganu and Kelantan, in PAS hands, cannot hold ceremahs without police permits; One PAS Trengganu held yesterday was allowed only at the last minute when the police permit was approved. But everyone misunderstood this, says Dato' Seri Abdullah. There is no ban on ceremahs, even if the government said there is. "If organisers can apply for permits to hold ceremah, it means there is never a ban on political and social gatherings."

He has a tourist village in Pulau Redang, off Trengganu, which is reached easily but it would not get special favours since Trengganu is run by PAS and which Kuala Lumpur wants to see run down. So, he gets Pulau Tioman. Why? Are there plans to shift Club Med from Cherating to Tioman? Is a casino planned there? If the aim is to make Malaysia more welcome to tourists, why is Pulau Tioman the target, since not as many as to Langkawi would go there?

Not only in Selangor. The mentri besar of Malaysia's smallest state, Perlis, rapes his forest reserves. The accusations Dato' Fauzi Abdul Rahman hurled at the former Pahang mentri besar, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakub, centred on alienating forest reserves. Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin is a wealthy man today becasue as mentri besar of Johore, such opportunities as alienating forest reserves came his way. One mentri besar of Perak, the father of the present, became so wealthy that the sultan, as in Johore against Tan Sri Muhiyuddin, rebelled. He went on to become Malaysia's ambassador to the then United Arab Republic, now Egypt. As the former mentri besar of Trengganu, Tan Sri Wan Mokhtar Ahmad, is now ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

In Trengganu, the National Front administration rejected, consistently and for 20 years, a now-retired civil servant's application to build a Catholic church in Kuala Trengganu. A convent there had wanted a multipurpose hall for years, but had been automatically rejected. Now that PAS is in power there, the convent has its multipurpose hall, and the retired civil servant the permission to build his church. In neighbouring Kelantan, similar stories abound: the Hindus in South Kelantan had applied for permission to build a temple in Gua Musang; the PAS state administration had approved it in 1978, but the National Front forced it out that year, but would not allow the temple to be built; when PAS returned to power in 1990, it promptly approved it, telling the committee it had done so in 1978. The mentri besar, Dato' Nik Aziz Nik Mat, has asked priests of churches and temples, Buddhist and Hindu, to spruce up their places of worship, even offering financial help when the cost is too much to bear.

So, GPMS takes issue (The Sun, 13 March 01) with the Trengganu mentri besar, Haji Hadi Awang, who claimed the political support of Malaysian undergraduates for the opposition. In the recent student representative council elections, those returned to power were not from UMNO or the National Front, but from PAS and the opposition. The Malay community is split politically and culturally, And so it is in the campuses. That cannot be true, GPMS asserts, for not all of them do. GPMS is not in a position to assess this: it would not be allowed into the campus to do a survey, its support imagined than real.

The Prime Minster behaves as a cornered rat. These days, he talks of nothing but why Malay Unity talks must be held. He puts his feeble case for it, relaxing UMNO's initial tough stance with PAS as he goes on. Without any aces up its sleeve, UMNO had its bluff called and PAS imposes conditions, which UMNO cannot meet without losing face. UMNO, which regards its role as a political party and in government as interchangeable, is now asked to ensure that Petronas' petroleum royalties to Trengganu are returned forthwith. UMNO, of course, refused. The PAS administration in Trengganu has filed a suit in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur for it, thus blocking off one condition UMNO cannot meet without mud on its face. But he now says PAS can discuss it at the talks itself. It would most likely not. The ground has shifted against UMNO and him. Especially if the talks are not eventually held.

So this is yet another much-ado-about-nothing. But it shows clearly that the institutions of state bend backwards to accommodate those in power and their satraps all the protection they can provide while denying it to those who have a different point of view. This in the end is what emerges. But when the opposition then defies the authorities and can attract tens of thousands it strengthens not the forces of law and order but of the anger these tens of thousands represent. The government insists only one point of view can be articulated; its own. But that is circumscribed by internal dissent. So the view articulated is reduced to that of whoever holds the whip. I daresay that if the MAF could gather its promised 10,000, the police would have glad to issue it a licence. As it was prepared to in Trengganu for the GPMS rally. It is not given because it would have made the organisers look like fools. And of course nothing hurts the organisers than being made fools of.

"It took us 15 years," a PAS leader told me, "to get back that support and respect." Indeed, when the Suqiu committee met to discuss strategy recently, it had one non-Chinese -- a Malay from PAS. So, PAS is wary of what the Prime Minister has in mind. It cannot reject it, for that would harm it more; it does not accept that Malay unity if fractured; it believes there is a shift, not a rift. No Malay unity talks could succeed now if it ignores Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Kuala Lumpur's denial of oil royalties to Trengganu. Both are symbols of Malay disunity UMNO caused.

All of this must be done. Indeed the least he could. But he must swiftly address the judiciary's inherent defects which only can with constitutional amendments. This requires guts, patience, persuasive powers to convince it must. It is on this his reputation rests. What brought the judiciary to its knees is the political interference in its independence. The Prime Minister's comment in 1986 that judges are but policemen and customs officers was followed by the sacking in 1988 of the Lord President, Tun Saleh Abas (now a state executive councillor in Trengganu), and the constitution amendment which destroyed judicial power so that, as a senior lawyer emailed me, "we do not know where it now rests".

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