This already faces flak from the coalition partners. The Sabah Progressive Party president, Dato' Yong Teck Lee, has indirectly criticised this plan by suggesting that Sabah adopt the Sarawak model in which all BN parties have a say in government and policy. Small though the party he leads, Dato' Yong is at the tip of the Sabah political iceberg, and aligned, by past political attachments, to the Sabah for Sabahans movement that is fast taking shape. In this group are the former chief minister, Dato' Salleh Said Keruak, Dr Ongkili, among others.

When the MNLF spit, a new separatist group called the Moro Islamic Liberation Front was formed, with as much support from Malaysian politicians and groups as the MNLF had. That support remains. It is now convenient to link that support to the larger war on terror that Washington has unleashed. But the Malaysian support is not so it supports Al Qaida, but to irritate Manila in this ongoing shadow boxing over the Philippines claim to Sabah. When the Abu Sayyaf group seized tourists from a disputed island off Sabah a few years ago, the former chief minister of Sabah, Dato' Yong Teck Lee, and the current deputy minister of education, Dato' Aziz Shamsuddin, backed by sundry Sabah and federal politicians, were deeply involved in the negotiations to have them released. There is more to their presence, as of others high in the government, than meets the eye.

The former Sabah chief minister, Dato' Yong Teck Lee, is no more an MP and state assemblyman. He lost both when an Elections Court disqualified him for electoral corrupt practices, and declared his state assembly seat vacant. The Federal Court rejected his application for leave to appeal. The rules call for a politician to be deprived of both his seats if he is disqualified in one. But in Malaysia, politicians, especially from the governing National Front (BN), believe that an election court which disqualified them must be biased. So Dato' Yong brings forth spurious arguments gush forth to suggest the Elections Commission is at fault, is biased, or otherwise there to ensure they are denied of their seats. The candidate has done no wrong, of course. The courts are biased. The elections commission is biased. His opponents, who filed the petitions, are biased. He alone is without blame. And the country must stand still while he finds creative ways to remain in office after he is disqualified.

The National Front candidate, Yong Teck Lee, from the small Sabah Action Party (SAPP), is neither popular nor charismatic. The High Court had disqualified him in an election petition, and the electorate knows if his appeal fails, as it should on legal precedent, the candidate with the second highest vote would be appointed.

UMNO is sure the Likas byelection is the National Front's. The SAPP is certain victory is its president and former chief minister, Dato' Yong Teck Lee's. The Sabah chief minister, Dato' Chong Kah Kiat, has no qualms to insist that the man he would rather not have supported but has to in view of his exalted position would win hands down. All of them have a niggling problem: they are worried sick of the entry of Parti Keadilan Negara in the electoral fray. This is the sense of the news reports in the Malaysian press.

Any extension of Dato' Osu's two-year term would be more resented in UMNO than in the National Front or the opposition. The Sabah National Front members are mutely incensed. When a Sabah politician says, as the former chief minister, Tan Sri Yong Teck Lee did, that people should not be anxious but "respect the Prime Minister's decision in resolving the current political situation", the National Front is in a crisis. The parties are so divided within that it needs the federal Prime Minister to smooth matters.

The Prime Minister, helpless as Malaysia in this Abu Sayyaf kidnap fiasco, watch in frustration and anger as the Philippines orders its military to root out the rebels at whatever cost. He thunders Malaysia would not accept if the three kidnapped Malaysians with the rebels are harmed. Kuala Lumpur expects this threat would reduce President Joseph Estrada, in the Malaysian view suspect as a personal friend of He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost, to slithering jelly. But the ground rules have changed. When there were foreigners in rebel hands, Manila and Kuala Lumpur were careful not to upset the applecart. When Malaysia and the European nations paid ransom to get the hostages released, the groundrules changed. Manila did not want them paid, but the European Community, facing political pressure at home, decided to. The Malaysians sent in the deputy education minister, Dato' Aziz Shamsuddin, and the former Sabah chief minister, Tan Sri Yong Teck Lee, with sundry ministers and deputy ministers to make their own deals, much to Manila's consternation. This bull-in-a-china shop approach to bilateral ties with Manila and the release of the 20 hostages kidnapped from an island claimed by Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta queered the pitch. Manila cocks a snook at Kuala Lumpur -- and justifiably.

So, the question arises if the kidnappings off the coast of Sabah in April and this month has yet another agenda: the return to national attention to the Sepanga Bay submarine base. The unusual interest the Malaysian government made in that kidnap, the widespread belief in Sabah that there was more than meets the eye over that kidnap, and the presence of the deputy minister of education, Dato' Aziz Shamsuddin, and the the former chief minister of Sabah, Tan Sri Yong Teck Lee, with sundry others, who insisted on interfering in the negotiations as Dato' Seri Najib now says Malaysia would not, all points to differing groups with a vested interest in either or both kidnappings. We do not have the soldiers or the sailors to guard the isolated islands in an area infested with pirates. The seas off Sabah is not the Straits of Malacca. But the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is certain security forces guarding Sabah's east coast would "deal" with rebels fleeing the fighting. There is no way it could, not even if all of Malaysia's men in uniform, policy and armed forces, are sent there to deal with it.

The Sabah state government ignores the drought, food shortages, the haze, the open fires as reports from the state suggest a gravity that can redound on it. The little news from Kota Kinabalu suggest the chief minister, Dato' Seri Yong Teck Lee, is oblivious to it all. Even the deputy chief minister (and possibly chief-minister soon), Dato' Joseph Kurup, state assemblymen and assistant ministers help in their personal capacity than as part of the state apparatus. Why? The starvation and drought is serious enough for the New Straits Times, on Saturday, to report it in stark detail. In some places, the drought enhances the starvation, with the lackadaisicalness of government agencies beggaring belief. Scant help comes from voluntary bodies, the federal Yayasan Salam, KFC, the fried chicken people, with state help, except for its staff, nonexistent, say those most affected. Yet, Dato' Seri Yong rejects federal help, as federal welfare services minister, Datin Zaleha Ismail, pointed out. Why?

More questions await answers in Warisan Harta's curiously inexplicable purchase of 3,000 lots of North Borneo Timber. It does not appear to have been bought at the market. The record of deals done on the stock exchange does not record this large number of shares on the day the shares were bought. It appears to have been a private deal. If it was a private deal, what were the compulsions that required Warisan Harta to "invest" in it? Could it not have been possible that NBT's Dato' Joseph Ambrose Lee forced the sale on his former law partner, Dato' Yong Teck Lee? Especially when his attempt to inject one of his companies into NBT backfired when the share turned sharply bearish. So far, Warisan Harta's chairman -- one Dato' Yong Teck Lee -- insists his actions were overboard.

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