THE PAHANG MENTRI BESAR, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob, now rewrites the Malaysian constitution: the sultan must consult and accept the advise of the state government on all matters but the award of honours and titles. The 1983 constitutional amendments made the rulers constitutional monarchs handmaidens to political power. The man who engineered that, the then prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, wanted to transfer the native inherent powers of the sultans – the awarding of honours and titles was one – to political power. But it was flawed ab initio, though no one would admit it then. What got everyone's goat at the time was of a sultan attackiing a drunk hockey coach who appeared before him as the Inspector-General of Police a decade-and-a-half later attacked a manacled and blindfolded deputy prime minister. The amendments were passed, the Yang Dipertuan Agung signed it over the objections of the sultans, which he cannot when it involves their rights and privileges as rulers. But it became the law of the land.

Since Dato' Noh is concerned about a corrupt free society, he should concentrate on UMNO. The recently concluded UMNO elections is by far the most corrupt. No one would admit it. Those who lost says they were defeated by bribes. One loser, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob, the mentri besar of Pahang, believes UMNO can be bought for RM2billion. But then, those who won do not know what bribe and corruption is. But only one presidential candidates did not bribe; the others must have spent close to RM50 million. You could multiply that by five or six times for the supreme council. But no one in UMNO, from Pak Lah to the ordinary member, want to upset the status quo. Not because no money changed hands, but that it did, and a full investigation could reveal the wrong men and women guilty.

He is left with few friends. The UMNO warlords, the traditional supporters of the president, are rebellious. UMNO is ridden in factions so numerous that they are a world unto their own. The party is for sale, as the Pahang mentri besar, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob, declared, and could be bought by foreign interests for as little as RM2billion. Few of these interest groups back him, even if they publicly proclaim their undying loyalty. They know the centre is weak, and can hold it to ransom at will. The recent UMNO elections was a point: money was the only currency for votes, one candidate ingeniously offering euros as bribes, and collectible overseas. The widespread allegation of vote buying loftily ignored because no one complained to the party disciplinary committee. But it is so serious that the Anti-Corruption must be brought in.

Some prominent UMNO leaders who disagreed with the supreme council resolution now say they were wrong, and the pair must be returned unopposed. They tell their supporters and backers they were forced to do so. This is not all. Three weeks ago, Pak Lah met the UMNO state liaison chiefs -- who are, except in Kelantan, all mentris besar and chief ministers -- to insist that all divisions under their fief should nominate only him and Dato' Seri Najib for the two top posts. The Sabah chief minister, Dato' Seri Musa Aman, and the Pahang mentri besar, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob, reports that their divisions implicitly agree to nominate none else for the two top positions. The others would fall in line before the divisions nominate the candidates this week.

But that meeting laid the ground work for the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, to insist the June UMNO supreme council agreed on a similar plan for Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib to be elected UMNO president and deputy president without contest. It has gone further. All state liaison committees are informed by UMNO headquarters that nominations for the two must be total; no one else must be nominated. The acclaimed UMNO unity is a myth. Pak Lah struggles to keep the party together. The warlords are on the rampage. Even Puteri UMNO now insists on contest for all positions, including the top two.

One way out would have the president and deputy president returned unopposed. The UMNO supreme council raised it, but with no discussion and no vote. It was left to die. In times past, this would have been taken as acceptance. Not now. The changing mood was ignored. The party secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, and the acting deputy president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, lied about it when they spoke to the press. The Malay character is not to challenge the leaders even if they are wrong. In Malay feudal practice, much in evidence in Malaysia, challenging the ruler is 'derhaka' - treachery - for which the penalty is death. But when Malay feudal practice is challenged, the lines are not as clear cut. As now.

Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is returned to office by too wide a margin, and he cannot revamp UMNO or the government as he would have liked. Besides, the opposition within has given notice the old practices on how leaders are selected must make way for new blood. But the UMNO gerontocracy would not allow it. The status quo will remain, where possible. The president and deputy president will be returned unopposed. It is an act of bravado, especially when the UMNO supreme council, the body which makes statements like these, did not call for it. Two gerontocrats, the party secretary-general and soon-to-be Yang Dipertua Negeri (governor) of Malacca, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, and the acting deputy president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, took it upon themselves to mislead the party and country.

THE MALAYSIAN DEPUTY PRIME minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, insisted last Tuesday, 25 May 2004, the UMNO supreme council had decided the previous night the party president and deputy president had been elected unopposed. One can understand why he made it. The National Front (BN) had had its best ever results in the March general elections, but in circumstances that suggest massive fraud to which the Election Commission actively bent the rules. It was to affirm Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as Prime Minister in his own right, and allow him to be his own man, not an appendage of his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. It did not. So a new plan is hatched to ensure he would be UMNO president come what may. The UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, read a statement he did not sign, though it was issued in his name. Dato' Seri Najib explained what it meant and why. The mainstream newspapers reported it parrot-like on the front pages in banner headlines. But the UMNO supreme council did not unanimously decide the UMNO president and deputy president be returned uncontested. In fact, it did not even discuss or raise it. Tan Sri Khalil and Dato' Seri Najib lied. Why?

THE UMNO SUPREME COUNCIL met on Monday (24 May 2004) and decided unanimously, so we are told the next day, that the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, are elected party president and deputy president respectively. Or as the UMNO secretary general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, put it: "The supreme council also agrees that acting president Abdullah is elected to the post of president without contest and the vice-preisdent carrying out the duties of deputy president, Najib, is elected to the post of deputy president without contest." All other posts for the supreme council will be decided in elections at the UMNO general assembly starting on 23 September. The obvious questions were not asked: How could the UMNO supreme council elect the party president and deputy president without falling foul of its own constitution and the Registrar of Societies? Why and how did it decide? Tan Sri Khalil's sepulchral announcement - as befits a man, if the widespread belief in UMNO can be believed - who would be soon the governor of Malacca, raises more questions than answers. He would not answer them. But someone must. It could not be left unexplained.

On the face of it, there is no inspired appointment in this cabinet. He wants, like Tun Mahathir, a cabinet of loyalists, would brook no opposition, within the feudal framework he becomes accustomed to. He has opened himself to attack in the states where he appointed several mentris besar at odds with the palace - Dato' Seri Shahidan Kassim in Perlis, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob in Pahang, Dato' Seri Mohamed Ali Rastam in Malacca, amongst others - and this could cause needless problems later on. But all told, in the circumstances, he has done well. He needs time to get used to the new circumstances, which while it entrenches the BN, and UMNO, hold on politics, he must fashion a policy to explain why, for the first time since the first elections in 1955, the Malays are for the first time in a minority in the new parliament. In this single-minded desire to frustrate the Islamist and multiracial Malay opposition with the help of the Chinese, the UMNO president allowed Malay representation in parliament to be less than 50 per cent. It made the mistake in Sabah and Sarawak when it assumed that anyone with a name that looked Malay - the chief minister of Sabah, Dato' Seri Musa Aman, the chief minister of Sarawak, Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, or the former Sabah chief minister, Dato' Seri Salleh Said Keruak, call themselves bumiputras, not Malay, indeed are not Malay but of Indian and Melanau blood. With PAS all but decimated in parliament, the majority of Malays in parliament would come from UMNO, and that is less than one hundred in a house of 219. Pak Lah is in more pressure than he realises. Which is why the coalition partners who forced him to chose could well pay dearly for their impudence.

The BN and UMNO in Pahang woke up too late to find PAS well organised, and a threat. It is the home state of the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. He faces a tough re-election campaign in his Pekan constituency, his opponent a retired well-regarded brigadier-general in his 70s. In 1999, he squeaked through with a 241 vote majority. It is touch-and-go, admits those around him, and made worse with two military camps with 4,000 voters, and a well-organised PAS electoral machine. PAS is fielding 30 candidates for the state assembly, almost all of whom well-educated or professionals. UMNO is disastrously divided in the state, the mentri besar, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob, rides rough shod over the UMNO machine that he is resented, and a few state assemblymen dropped have switched their allegience to PAS. The BN and UMNO woke up too late to find that they have to play second fiddle to PAS. What frightens is PAS's campaign is not to take the state now but to disorient UMNO further so that it would fall into its lap without effect in 2009.

THE MENTRI BESAR OF PAHANG, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob, said the National Front (BN) list is ready but for three parliamentary constituencies - Bentong, Indera Mahkota, Pekan (The Star, 28 February 2004, p12). Pekan? The seat of the Dato' Shahbander of Pahang, which two successive holders of the post, Malaysia's second prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, and his son, the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib, they had held for UMNO since 1955? The constituency was far larger in 1955 than it is today, but its crown jewel is within the present boundaries. Dato' Seri Adnan did not say why. How did a solid albeit feudal UMNO stronghold be now a marginal constituency? In 1999, the deputy prime minister, as he was not then, squeaked in by 241 votes, and this after the 2,400 postal votes were counted. The feudal spell and Razak mystique could no longer sustain his son's political future. When the constituencies were redrawn since, an army and an airforce camp from the adjoining Mentakab and Kuantan constituencies, with 4,000 voters were brought within the new Pekan electoral boundary. On the face of it, Dato' Seri Najib should easily romp home. The reality is far, far different.

The People's Progressive Party (PPP) stirs up a mini crisis when its president, Dato' M. Kayveas, claims the BN secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, offered him the new parliamentary constituency of Cameron Highlands. This is promptly denied. "I never promised anyone any seat," he said. The BN should be quaking in its boots by now: if the PPP did not get the Cameron Highlands seat, Dato' Kayveas warns, his party members would not campaign for whoever is chosen. Dato' Kayveas is an honorable man. He would not lie, but what he said is not the truth either. It was not Tan Sri Khalil who made the offer but the third member of the election committee who is possibly the most powerful man in the country after Pak Lah. The BN team offered the PPP one state constituency and two Senators. As Dato' Kayveas walked away, he was accosted by the third man who offered him Cameron Highlands. But the man cannot be named or compromised, so he prepares the ground to blame some one if he does not get it, and sideline him if he does.

The BN secretary-general, Tan Sri Mohamed Rahmat, has quit, after 35 years in Parliament. His place is taken by the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob. He has his hands full, is to retire soon. He was to have been the Governor of Malacca but that did not work out. But Pak Lah should have appointed some one younger and energetic. More important, he should have ensured the BN secretary-general to be a non-UMNO member. The Alliance secretary-general was always from the MCA. But that was not followed when the BN was established in 1973. If he could not appoint a Chinese, he could at least have appointed someone who could make BN at least active. There is another facet to Tan Sri Mohamed's retirement: It is a subtle hint to the MIC and Gerakan presidents, and others too long in the tooth in office to take the hint. Would they?

Why is it so difficult to bring English back into the curriculum when it was the norm in the 1960s? Why must English have to fight its way into the classroom? Why has the standard of English declined to so parlous a state? I sat for my Cambridge School Certificate in 1956, when English flourished, was accepted by and in all communities as the language one must learn if one wanted to go for higher studies or indeed get a government job. And so until 1971, 14 years into independence. Though Malay gained in importance and after 1967 the only national and official language, English nevertheless had an important role. All that changed when the then education minister, Dato' Abdul Rahman Yaakob, later chief minister of Sarawak, the Yang Dipertua Negeri and Tun, without cabinet approval, announced the phasing of English from the curriculum. The Malay coup d'etat, after the 13 May 1969 racial riots, the rise of Malay extremism, Malay political and racial chauvinism, a deep-rooted xenophobia to hobble the non-Malay, Malay politicians on the make all combined to destroy the teaching of English in Malaysian schools.

This is why a secret meeting took place at the Awana Resort, midway to Genting Highlands, in the second week of September. All were curiously from the UMNO Team B, which was later to be Semangat '46. That it was held at all reveals Pak Lah's insecurities. He is fearful of a Najib bandwagon, and by this meeting revealed to be weaker than he is thought to be. One man at the meeting stood out like a sore thumb: Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. Why he was there is unclear, unless Pak Lah wanted his help to deflect Dato' Seri Najib. Pak Lah was there, of course. So were the former deputy prime minister and Pak Lah's mentor, Tan Sri Musa Hitam; Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, who if rumours be true, is the home minister under Pak Lah; Tengku Azlan ibni almarhum Sultan Abu Bakar, the brother of the Sultan of Pahang (there presumably to show the Palace is wary of Dato' Seri Najib); Pak Lah's financial and political advisor, Dato' Khalimullah Hassan, and a representative of the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob. After the day's discussion, Pak Lah and Tengku Razaleigh returned; the others stayed on to conspire and for golf.

The only other UMNO leader quoted by the NST in what it sees as an insult to Malaysia's nationalism and patriotism was the Pahang mentri besar, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob who not understanding how the media works and believes only in a fawning media which reports what he wants them to write nevertheless has his say: "... the magazine does not know how to respect others' views ... (and belies) the view that (the) Western media is professional ... (but it) picked up the wrong person to mess with." Where are the other staunch supporters of the freedom of the press in the government?

THE UMNO SECRETARY-GENERAL, TAN Sri Khalil Yaakob, and the Sabah UMNO chief minister, Dato' Musa Aman, are in no doubt the opposition in the state would be annihilated in the coming state assembly polls. "The BN will achieve a 100 per cent victory in the next Sabah state election," they crowed at a press conference in Sandakan on 04 September 2003. Both clearly did not agree with their over-optimistic assessment and quickly downgraded their confident expectations: Dato' Musa would then speak only of "overwhelming success" and Tan Sri Khalil of his confidence in an opposition rout. In other words, neither believed in what they said. It was an attempt to rouse the BN supporters in Sabah from their fissiparous turf-defining quarrels to implausibly rally around to rout the opposition. So, the spin continues.

How did this come about? Last week, the Pahang mentri besar, Dato' Seri Adnan Yaakob, to divert attention from the casino mess he is in, said "people did not like their 'wakil rakyat' showing off their wealth". If they did, he warned, they would not be candidates in the general election. What about those who, like the second finance minister, Dato' Seri Jamaluddin Jarjis, put at risk the BN's electoral chances in the state by allowing virtual casino licences to the super crony, Tan Sri Vincent Tan? They do not flaunt their wealth, so how do they come within this new restriction for candidates? To continue, the Prime Minister said the UMNO constitution need not be amended, "this is only an administrative matter". The UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, any proposal like this must first be discussed by the party leaders. But if it is made, "it is a good thing".

THE MENTRI BESAR OF PAHANG, DATO' Seri Adnan Yaakob, was so hurt by the grant of a second casino licence in his state that he complained about it to the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed. It would redound on Pahang UMNO, he warned, to ward off a determined challenge from PAS. I had, in my last column in the PAS newspaper, Harakah, written of it under the heading: Pahang Darul Kasino. The licence was issued to that super-crony, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, last seen riding a horse with one Dr Mahathir Mohamed. It caused a furore in UMNO as its leaders rushed for cover. Dr Mahathir, on his return from two months' leave, summoned the second finance minister, Dato' Seri Jamaluddin Jarjis, who brought along the cabinet minister who orchestrated it, Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor. Tan Sri Vincent's pseudo-French establishment was only allowed slot machines, but the licence issued provides for a virtual casino, with computerised baccarat and roulette and other games of chance. The Prime Minister was not amused.

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