Will the people's attention be diverted from the cause of Reformasi by the scandalous and as yet unproven
accusations and allegations against Anwar or will the people play smart and ignore these issues and focus on
the real issues - the rampant corruption, nepotism and cronyism, abuse of power, lack of transparency,
misuse and mismanagement of public funds and many other significant abuses of the system perpetrated by
the Mahathir regime?

Muslim Malaysians appear to be returning to their religion in droves, driven perhaps more by the shock of
the economic crisis than any other factor, as all walks of life continue to be affected by a situation which
deteriorates daily. The government itself appears caught in the grip of its own vested interests determined to
salvage whatever they can personally out of the economic and financial straits they find themselves in, even
at the expense of the common people.

Many formerly enriched businessmen linked to the government now find themselves technically bankrupt,
their companies technically insolvent, unable to pay even the interest on their loans. They continue to blame
everyone else except themselves for the whole situation, hoping that people will forget what they themselves
have done to lay the breeding ground for the problems that now beset them and the country. These are the
cronies whom Mahathir wishes to help using government and public funds at the expense of the ordinary
people.

Most Malaysians say that these people deserve to be in their present predicaments for their own greed,
extravagance, mismanagement, abuse of position and trust, corruption and lack of charity during good times.
None of them will be missed if they went down or decided to exit. Taking the exit route would of course be
least traumatic on the Malaysian public and one which will allow the much needed corporate, economic and
social (and also political) restructuring and re-engineering to take place as it should - this is Reformasi.

Mahathir the neo-feudal lord on the other hand seems just as determined to cling to power, maintain the
status quo and all its vested interests and to save those accused of being his and Daim Zainuddin's, UMNO
Treasurer and Special Functions Minister’s cronies even though he cannot offer any cogent answers other
than to blame it on foreign currency speculators and to urge the people to unite behind the government and
give it complete trust in its largely undetermined, undefined and ineffective approaches to the economic
crisis. It is the inept Mahathir government which got Malaysia into this mess in the first place - can or should
it be trusted to get Malaysia out of the mess? Will Malaysians allow themselves to be deceived yet again?

Mahathir has toured the whole country in a bid to "explain" his version of the economic crisis to the people.
While cracking down on rumours of riots in the central KL market of Chow Kit which spread like wildfire
chiefly on newsgroups through the Internet (for which 4 people have been arrested and detained without trial
under Malaysia’s Draconian Internal Security Act - a British legacy meant to be used against Communist
insurgents in the 1950’s), the irony is that Mahathir himself has been desperately exhorting the people not to
riot, strike or incite racial and religious disharmony or conflicts. Why the need to do this if there is no such
threat? Or is he himself out to create such a threat, which is not beyond him?
 
 
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