The Prime Minister is in a dilemma. Instead of re-orienting UMNO back into the Malay cultural fold, he used the ill-thought-out Malay Agenda to hit out at the opposition Parti Sa-Islam Malaysia (PAS) and his jailed nemesis. If his speech had any saving grace, one had to comb through it so finely and not find it. It was an imperial edict to the plebians that they had better follow him into the Malay Agenda. The Malays would have, if his well-argued thesis was not spoiled by a political attack that reduced his stature with the delegates. The net result: the delegates voted in a slate which can only make his political life from now rather uncomfortable. But the National Front leaders, like organ grinders' monkeys performing on cue, could not praise the Prime Minister enough for his "brilliant" speech to UMNO delegates on Thursday. It takes not much for them, every single one past shelf-life, as the Prime Minister, to erupt, like pimples on an adolescents, in paroxyms of treacly praise, its import in inverse proportion to its impact amongst the rank and file. This incestuous backscratching is all the Prime Minister can depend upon these days, besides the paeans of praise his courtiers and sycophants dole out at every conceivable opportunity.

But the Prime Minister's elections setback is as serious as the National Front's after the November 1999 general elections. The president's men and solitary woman came in, but so did the Anwaristas to warn him of a denuouement in the most serious political crisis since the racial riots of May 1969. The Prime Minister's curious attack on his protege and nemesis in his confrontational, though in character, speech to justify UMNO's lurch towards a Malay Agenda in which Islam takes central place, reflected petulance, abrasiveness, frustration. But, as it turned out, the delegates had had enough, and delivered him a Supreme Council to constantly remind him of a Malaysian Mandela. The dominating influence, however one looks at it, that of a prisoner whom the Prime Minister would rather he spend the rest of his years in Sungei Buloh. Those he praised, like the new Wanita leader, Datin Rafidah Aziz, were booed; those he attacked won seats to the Supreme Council when they were not expected to. The UMNO delegates decided enough was enough, and voted him a metaphorical black eye. He is, in no uncertain terms, on notice. The three UMNO vice presidents, once aligned to He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost, retain, however weakly, links with him. This means, the next deputy prime minister is aligned to the prisoner in Sungei Buloh.

The Prime Minister's hands are tied. He can, in his gift, appoint six Supreme Council members and four party officers. But any attempt to fill them with defeated favourites would loosen the hold he has on the ground. He cannot gather around him his favourites if the party does not want them. He has to balance the mix of Supreme Council members. He must exclude defeated candidates, however high or self-important. He must temper his dictatorial preference with consultations; otherwise what happened to Tengku Abdul Rahman could well be his fate. Politics, especially in UMNO, is feudal, and encourages this sort of behaviour. The leader could do what he likes so long as he commands that respect. The Prime Minister, by his inept handling of the Anwar affair, has lost that. Malay comeuppance takes a long time to take effect, which is why foreign observers cannot believe that since September 1998, the Prime Minister's feet are of clay. If he kept faith with his ground, as he has not, he would have been in happier circumstance. It is, from now on, a test of wills. His nominated Supreme Councillors would provide the first test.

For the first time in decades, the Supreme Council reflects ground realities, power groups, regional equations. More important, it demands a fairer deal for He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost. In a contested climate of judicial second-guessing and prosecutorial bungling, fewer believe in his guilt by the day; nor would they like to see him rot in Sungei Buloh. This can only be resolved politically. The return of his men in such larger numbers into the Supreme Council attests to that. The original allegations and doubts the Prime Minister insists led to his dismissal only heightens his frustrations and anger. This elections could well reflect not Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's strength but Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed's weakness. It does not matter which. The man on the spot now is the former not the latter. It raises uncomfortable questions. Is it a personal vendetta, which Dato' Seri Anwar inistes it is, bolstered by a political conspiracy? Is this of grass trampled as elephants fight? The Malay Agenda, with its Islamic worldview, cannot take root under such circumstances. Unless UMNO brutally reinvents itself to remain credible. Could it under the leadership of He Who Thinks He Is Lord Of All He Surveys? Perhaps. When Pigs Fly.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my