Few remember history in Malaysia, but there were officials at the time who remembered what Ibu Zain did, though they were surprised she was alive. Dato' Onn died in 1963, an MP from Trengganu, not of UMNO but the ultra nationalist Parti Negara. Tun Hussein Onn, who hero-worshipped his father, made a special trip to Trengganu on becoming prime minister and saw his father's compatriots there. Dato' Onn died out of UMNO, got no awards for his contributions as lesser men and women have, but that is the fate of former Presidents of UMNO. He is treated now with respect, his photo as that of UMNO presidents since hang on the walls of PWTC. He died outside of UMNO, as did his successor and his son. UMNO the nationalist movement that he founded is not UMNO the political party that Tun Mahathir Mohamed founded in 1987, and who remains the only former UMNO President. But it is out of sight out of mind in UMNO.

This is an issue that will not go away. The Federal Constitution is raped so that Malaysia is an Islamic state. Although Trengganu courts have said the Trengganu state assembly could not give to an organisation to issue fatwas, in the Federal government it is allowed. Otherwise, how could a government department – which the Islamic religious department is – create a crisis, and showed its power by saying it would not form a snoop squad because Pak Lah objects to it. In other words, this department will not follow government rules and will follow what the prime minister has to say, not the other way around. Now in Tampin, an issue has cropped up which would alienate the Chinese and the Buddhists. A Malay woman, who married a Chinese Buddhist in 1936 and has practiced as one since, has died at 89; she was disallowed to leave the Muslim religion about 15 years ago. The Negri Sembilan religious affairs department want to bury her as a Muslim. She has not been a Muslim for 60 years. Pak Lah, the MCA and the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia should make a stand. So must Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, Pak Lah's son-in-law, who is from the state (Negri Sembilan), and hopes to be prime minister of Malaysia soon. He is now engaged in making sure the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, would not.

When an opposition party comes into power in the state – Kelantan, Trengganu, Penang, Sabah, Sarawak are the only states which had, or has, an opposition party in power – extraordinary steps are taken to reduce their constitutional rights. The eleven states in 1957 formed a federation in which they ceded some of their inherent powers to the centre, with the promise that any new rights that may arise would devolve to the states unless they voluntarily hand over to the federal authority. The federal coastal limits and rights come from its littoral states. But Putra Jaya does not honour that.

The former prime minister, Tun (as he later became) Mahathir Mohamed, could stop UMNO from disintegrating, but his successor, Pak Lah, could not. The 2004 general elections, which the BN won, is, in the Malay mind, flawed; the cries of foul play and corruption is rooted in anecdotal, and often, in legal, evidence. It was returned in 90 per cent of the constituencies in parliament, it seized Trengganu from the opposition PAS, but the legitimacy Pak Lah desired eluded him. He has one more chance: to have his men returned in the UMNO elections next month.

This invitation for tea followed shortly after. It does not matter who called whom. Or what was discussed. It was, for all I care, a meeting to find out who each was. Whatever it is, it had the desired effect of both UMNO and PAS: the election petitons were struck out in Kelantan and Trengganu.

As details emerged, PAS read the signals correctly: it went along so it would all but destroy UMNO in Kelantan. But the PAS elections director, Dato' Mustapha Ali, and the president and former Trengganu mentri besar, Dato' Seri Haji Hadi Awang, disagreed. As did other state PAS leaders. But the Tok Guru decided that it was pointless to proceed with the election petitions; the rules are stacked against the opposition; and it would never win. More important, it would lose Kelantan, the only state it controls. There is now way the election results could be overturned in Trengganu. The risks were too great. With this arrangement, Kelantan was safe.

IT IS NOT THE best of omens, it seems. Last month's general elections, which gave the National Front (BN) under its new president and prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi its best ever result: 90 per cent of the 219 seats in parliament, control of all 11 of 12 states which had elections (thirteenth, Sarawak, is a BN controlled state anyway). Yet disturbing persistent reports of poll rigging, the Election Commission's less than honest conduct of it, and darker forces that in any other country with a democratic tradition, however nascent, it would have been nullified. The BN, instead of addressing it, wished it away, and Opposition claims of poll rigging is dismissed as sour grapes. But there is one huge difference. At no point, did the Opposition expect to unseat the BN government, indeed they accepted it would have at least a two-thirds majority. It also accepted, in its most pessimistic assessment, Trengganu, which happened. But in an election where it had everything in its favour, why did the BN involve, or at most allow, this poll rigging? As information trickles down, from disaffected UMNO members and others, all of this was concocted at the 38th floor of the Putra World Trade Centre, where UMNO has its headquarters.

WAS THE HIGH VOTER turnout in he recent general elections expected? Of course, says the New Straits Times in an analysis yesterday (NST, 26 March 2004, p2) the high voter turnout in the Malay heartland was not unexpected. The NST, after all, commissioned the Universiti Utara Malaysia, to conduct an opinion poll, and it more or less mirrored the results. The survey showed that 93 per cent of voters in Trengganu and 94 per cent in Kelantan would vote the National Front (BN). The voter turnout in fact was 89.72 per cent and 80.99 respectively. The other BN-controlled newspaper, the Star, had another poll to come to the same results: that the BN would recapture the Malay heartland under the great and glorius leadership of the man of the hour.

THE NATIONAL FRONT (BN) is home and dry in last week's general election, returned to office with half a dozen more seats than the old parliament had, affirmed the electoral legitimacy of its new leader, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, shaking off at the same time any influence his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, had had on him in his first five months as prime minister. He literally decimated the opposition in the new parliament, reclaimed the Malay heartland, sidelined the Islamist opposition, took the looming political battle over Islamic supremacy in Malaysia out of parliamentary overview while shutting out non-Malay involvement in it. He shook the opposition PAS to the bone, routing it in Trengganu, badly dented its control of Kelantan; reduced the multiracial National Justice Party (KeADILan) into a crisis from which it could take years to recover; with the Democratic Action Party (DAP) its main opposition in parliament and a PAS all but voiceless, that on first sight justifies the euphoric sentiment of the Malaysian and foreign press and market sentiment.

THE NATIONAL FRONT WON an unexpected landslide victory in yesterday's (21 March 2004), the best since it as the Alliance won 51 of 52 constituencies for the Federal Legislative Assembly in 1955. It is a result that defies statistical probability and logic. It swept the Malay states, routed PAS in Trengganu, a cliff hanger in Kelantan, where the votes are still being recounted, decimated the National Justice Party, KeADILan, and made its president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, unbeatable in his own right. The only KeADILan MP is its president, Datin Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. PAS saw its hopes dashed so thoroughly that it would be awhile before it recovers. The only opposition of any note comes from the Democratic Action Party (DAP). But this BN victory also calls into question the Election Commission's impartiality and ability to conduct elections. It stepped in in Selangor when as polls were about to close it was clear the BN and the Opposition were running neck to neck. Without warning, it extended the voting by two hours, breaking its own rules and without consulting the candidates. It was during this time that BN bussed in a surge of voters that turned the tide. Pak Lah's brilliant mandate comes with it deep-seated questions of fairness of the election process.

Pak Lah's BN went on a media blitz to hide its unpreparedness. In many areas of the country, there was none. Since the BN campaign blitz is oiled by large dollops of money, the lack of it ground it to a halt in many key constituencies up and down the country. The arrogant selection of candidates caused a virtual civil war in every BN component party, and this flowed over into the campaign itself. Important party officials dropped as candidates just moved away to other states to work for their return into UMNO's inner circle in the June party elections. The official and mainstream media would not report on this, but its sycophantic coverage of the BN was overdone, and helped move voters to the Opposition. The BN, staring defeat in its face, went on the offensive: it attacked PAS leaders, notably the Kelantan and Trengganu mentris besar, Dato' Seri Nik Aziz Nik Mat and Dato' Seri Abdul Hadi Awang. That backfired. The electoral frustrations within BN forced the candidates to campaign on the component party symbols. In some areas, like in Kampung Bharu, the UMNO flags were more in evidence than the BN.

Pak Lah needs to romp home, if possible, with 80 per cent of Parliament and a two-thirds majority in the state assemblies, to be returned as UMNO president in his own right in June. He took a calculated risk to prune the BN list drastically, but it was done in self-interest, and it backfired. He did it so stupidly that those dropped learnt of it from from the newspapers or radio or television after the fact. He changed candidates at random, causing the divisions to close its election centres, in some cases, burning them down, or offering its services to the Opposition. In many a constituency, the BN election machinery is but shut down, and Pak Lah can do nothing about it. He and his deputy, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, rush from one area to the next as internal sabotabe threatens its optimistic expectations. The danger for Pak Lah is the Malay belt - Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu - and Pahang and Selangor. He could not turn PAS out of the two state governments under its control, Kelantan and Trengganu, but PAS could deny BN its two-third majority in the other states. If he cannot make headway in the Malay states, even a two-thirds majority would not help him politically. The internal squabbles in Johore, Sarawak and Sabah puts even a sweep of these states, which he depended on for his two-thirds majority, not so easy as he thought. The biggest threat to BN candidates in several constituencies is not the Opposition but the BN itself.

This election, like in every past election, is to annoint the National Front (BN) in with a two-thirds majority to Parliament. The crisis occurs when it does not, as in 1969. While parliament is the prize, the battle for control is in the states. The Opposition knows that denying the two-thirds majority in the states puts the BN on the defensive, but the best it can hope is to retain the Kelantan and Trengganu it has, deny the BN the two-thirds majority, and make every constituency a marginal one. But the Opposition knows that to form the government in the state is a double-edged sword: every BN-controlled state is not only on the verge of bankruptcy but also owes hundreds of millions of ringgit, as PAS was to find out when it took charge of Kelantan and Trengganu.

UMNO's focus is on Kedah, Perlis, Pahang and Selangor, where PAS has made deep inroads. PAS could not cause upsets in Pahang and Selangor, except in a few constituencies, but it could in Kedah and Perlis, where BN must fighter the harder to retain control. This worries UMNO no end. But long years of neglect, and overbearing state leaders, who behave as Dato' Seri Samy Vellu in fine form, must in the end cost it heavily. PAS believes in softening up the ground, gradually over the years until the state falls into its lap without effort. It worked to a 30-year, or generational, schedule. It got side-tracked in 1959, when it formed the state governments in Kelantan and Trengganu. It lost control of Trengganu two years later. It forgot its scedule, and could not make headwy. What brought it to its senses is its ill-fated years in BN; when that soured and led to its dismissal from Kelantan in 1978, it rethought its strategy and restarted its 30-year schedule. That works to plan. It has Kelantan and Trengganu under its belt, it believes it add the four northern Malay states, and a few others in the general election after 2004.

The states PAS controls - Kelantan and Trengganu - the BN has promised to defeat. It is easier said than done. Kelantan is firmly in PAS hands. So should Trengganu. The BN is sure PAS would be defeated. But that does look unlikely. The Opposition does not control its advance. It is Pak Lah who does. He needs a solid victory to strengthen his hold on UMNO before the party elections later this year. But he may not pull it off. For UMNO and BN has ignored Trengganu after it got only five of the 32 state assembly seats. And caused a political furore when it refused to hand over to the PAS-run Trengganu the Petronas royalties due to the state. That is now before the courts. But what makes it difficult for BN is that it hands the petroleum royalties, which it labels 'wang ehsan', to its state leader to distribute.

He faces two important pressures: that PAS could seize Kedah; and the need, for his own survival, to offset it with the return to BN of either or both PAS-run Kelantan and Trengganu. The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, has rushed down to Kedah, and is terribly impressed with the reception, which he argues is a good sign that the state will remain firmly in BN hands. Crowds of 5,000 followed him wherever he went. There are two reasons for that: the BN's well-tested rent-a-crowd policy is augmented by a PAS organisation which has asked its supporters to welcome federal leaders with large crowds. Pak Lah came to similar conclusions in Kelantan and Trengganu. A prime minister cannot address crowds of 5,000 in hostile territory, so, depending on whether you believe the New Straits Times or the Singapore Straits Times, 50,000 or 30,000 attended. Curiously, for crowds of this size the newspapers would have at least had photographs of the crowds. There was none of that. Suffice it is to say that there was a large crowd. But it taken as read in a political society where support is measured in how many attend, that BN-controlled newspapers often drop a zero from the estimated crowd at an opposition function and add a zero for BN rallies and functions.

THE NATIONAL FRONT (BN) GOVERNMENT is furious that Friday sermons at some mosques throughout the country have a decidedly "political" - by its definition, anti-government - tinge. The only Islam it accepts is what it stands for, however vague or unacceptable it is to the Muslims in the community. Shamsul Akmar, in his political column in the New Straits Times, talks about it this morning (09 February 2004) but he narrows its focus to an irrelevant happenstance: that some mosque sermons equated the horrific rape and murder of a young girl as God's punishment for an UMNO official. The BN, and its predecessor Alliance, government, on the other hand, took it as a political decision since independence to control the mosques politically. But it took this position whilst ignoring how Islam developed in Malaya. There were three strands: in the Federated Malay States of Perak, Selangor, Pahang and Negri Sembilan; the Unfederated Malay States of Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu and Johore; the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca. Islam and the mosques developed differently in the three areas, with the added confusion that the five UMS states moved at their individual pace. In the FMS and in the Straits Settlements, the Religious Affairs Department had total control of the mosques in the state, directly or indirectly.

THE FORMER PRIME MINISTER, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, is in his unusual self of kicking off an election campaign when his successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has nightmares deciding on the date. But such trifles does not bother a man whose distaste for mingling with the hoi polloi is well known. They are useful only at election time, and they do their duty only when they vote for the BN. These days that is becoming the harder, especially amongst the Malays in what is the Malay heartland of Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and Trengganu. With the UMNO-led BN in a bind over the unexpectedly successful PAS inroads in his home state of Kedah, he wants to do his bit to ensure it is still an UMNO mentri besar who would be chief executive of the state. But his unusual high profile election task stems from his worry that if Kedah is lost after he departs, it is he who would be blamed. Besides, the government intelligence agencies found in several secret readings last year that it did not matter if Dr Mahathir or Pak Lah is Prime Minister, the BN results would be the same. So he comes in to pitch for a BN victory. But it did not discuss what would happen if both are in charge. He is now Kedah BN's election adviser.

There is a desperation in these moves. After having dismissed Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim as a political irrelevancy in 2004, it has to eat its words. He looms large as ever, as an Opposition mascot and as a recurrent nightmare in UMNO and BN. If it wants to do better, it is not enough to have Opposition members crossing over from Kelantan, Trengganu, Perlis and Kedah, and in some parts of Selangor. If this were true, it would have crowed to kingdom come of its success. It has done nothing of that. Five hundred cross-overs a week from Kelantan and Trengganu means this year alone 2,000 have crossed to UMNO, and 24,000 last year, and steadily since 1999. These cross-overs do not come about because there is an election due: if they are dissatisfied, they would at all times and through the years. Yet, try as I might, I cannot find evidence of this brilliant UMNO move to destroy the Opposition political parties by encouraging desertion of their members to it. But unless it can wean over the whole KeADILan leadership, UMNO has lost the battle of the cross-overs. One Anwar Ibrahim firmly in the Opposition is worth more than the worst UMNO and BN can manage to inflict upon the Opposition before the General Election.

The BN and UMNO cannot understand how a convicted politician could exert the influence he does on the Malaysian political scene. The one single election issue in 1999 was Dato' Seri Anwar. It shook lose UMNO's hold in the Malay majority constituencies, and lost Trengganu and Kelantan to PAS. In the coming General Election, this would remain even without the Anwar issue. As UMNO officials put it, Perlis and Kedah is at risk, as the BN's two-thirds majority in these states if it retains control, Pahang, Selangor and possibly Negri Sembilan. Especially when UMNO leaders do not go down to the ground to put its view across. Its principal Malay rival, the Parti SeIslam Malaysia (PAS), has worked the ground for years, shows more sense of purpose on what it wants to do than the BN and UMNO has shown in recent years.

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