The nation has yet to recover from the shock wave crated by Tajudin Ramli's revelation about his seemingly irrational purchase of MAS shares back in the 90s at a price much higher than their market value.

It was a move puzzling to everybody then. A small helicopter company buying over the national carrier is like an Ikan Kembong swallowing a big whale shark. It did not make sense. It made even less sense when in the year 2000, the government bought back the MAS shares at RM8 a share, 117% above their market price.

Every one with some basic knowledge of arithmetic and commerce knew that something was amiss. But it was a different time, under a different PM. Many strange things involving hundreds of millions, and then billions, went amiss without their ever being unravelled.

The opposition was weak and had no access to vital or privileged information, since the parties involved were not going to jeopardise themselves by snitching. There was always that excuse of national interests and need for official secrecy. The media was a tame ingratiating suppliant lot. The courts were under a cloud after the Anwar Ibrahim trials.

Things are a bit different these days. Tajudin Ramli has now gone to court, to file his RM13 billion counter claim against the government, among other parties. All his allegations are now public court documents. While we cannot discuss the merit of his case less we are accused of trying to influence the judges, we cannot stop the court of public opinions from all kinds of flights of imagination.

I can only imagine the scenario when the High Court begins to hear the case on August 10. Very prominent personalities, including a former PM and a former Finance Minister will perhaps be summoned to testify in court, to authenticate or falsify - under oath - a private agreement on matters which rupture the very foundation of governance. Needless to say, the court-house will be packed to overflowing.

This one case, together with a whole host of politically sensitive cases now before the court, will have far-reaching and serious consequences upon the confidence of the public in the institutions of state.

Judiciary being judged again

The first institution to come under an acid test of credibility will be the judiciary. Suddenly, our judges are called upon to hear these cases which are extremely difficult to trial. There is widespread media coverage. The powerful personalities involved are, or were, movers and shakers of the nation at one time or another. Laws and facts aside, the issues running through these cases are delicate and sensitive.

Already, the judiciary must have felt the pressure from all directions. There is the constant hounding from certain quarters for greater transparency in the judiciary itself, on recruitment and promotion of judges, and on investigation into alleged corruption even among members of the revered Bench.

These pressures from the legal fraternity and the public signify a genuine and legitimate demand from stock-holders to bring about meaningful change within the judiciary. This is indeed an open window of opportunity for the odd judges to practise a little judicial activism, instead of hiding behind legality and technicality. Judicial activism is what I like to see in the case of Article 11 of the Federal Constitution concerning religious freedom.

Personally I am looking forward to a series of ground-breaking landmark decisions in the court on a wide array of crucial issues that have been repressed for too long under the previous administration. But there is a difference between rational hope and self-delusion.

The dynamics of an institution, or any group of individuals playing the same set of rule for that matter, is such that usually no more than 20% of their members would actually want or welcome change. Apart from the fence-sitters in the middle ground, there will always be large chunks of those who will oppose any change with vehemence.

For most organisations, people generally resist change. They find comfort in the security of traditions, and hate the uncertainty of new rules of conduct and new standards of ethics. The conservative impulse that 'if things ain't broke, why fix it?" runs deep. Besides, one's turf and one's vested interest will always seem threatened by alterations in the rules of the game that one happens to be playing.

The police are a perfect example. As in the case of the judiciary, the police have the entire population of the nation as their stock-holders. When there was a popular demand for drastic changes in the way the police handle themselves in the course of their duty, to the extent of setting up a standing external Commission to monitor their professionalism, three unions within the force voiced out their vociferous opposition. How that issue will play out in the end is interesting.

Chain reaction

One way to persuade the conservatives that meaningful change needs to come about is to show why the old ways of doing things have brought about untold damages. This will require a confluence of historical forces, mobilising many institutions, to bring the rattling skeletons from the dusty darkness of the closet to the healing sunlight of public attention.

The Tajudin Ramli fiasco is such a ripple - one among many - in the pool of stagnant water, into which a pebble has been dropped. Any such ripple so created seems to trigger off a chain reaction similar in its explosiveness found in the chain reaction of a nuclear reactor.

Certainly, Tajudin Ramli's story has confirmed a theory on the relationship between a patron and his blue-eye boys, a relationship which has dominated the corporate world at one time. I wonder how this latest revelation is going to affect another case now before the Federal Court bearing on accusation of judicial bias.

Then again, there is another issue that has a greater significance than the MAS deal itself. Tajudin Ramli has made some comments about being told that Bank Negara and/or the Treasury were cash-strapped because of currency speculation on the international market.

Bank Negara is the guardian of our Malaysian Ringgit, and the arbiter of our national economy. For Bank Negara to be involved in highly speculative monetary deals, plunging the nation's economy into great perils, surely there must be some serious transgression of the law. No wonder foreign investors shy away from Malaysia! If anything needs a Royal Commission of Enquiry, this is it.

Naturally, conservatives are full of fear of the unknown that changes will bring. The eruption of so many scandals within such a short span of a few years must have alarmed them. Will all these bad news affect the credibility of our political system? Will People lose faith in the government in general, so that foreign investors will be driven away even more, and the ruling parties will suffer insufferable losses during the next election?

Brendan Pereira, in an article that appeared in the NST (July 10 2006) expressed this very fear. He claims that in the MAS shares episode, the government is the big loser.

I disagree.

The big losers

If Tajudin Ramli's story is proven to be true, then the big loser has been the people of Malaysia. It means that their taxes paid out from their hard earned money has been spent as if it is the personal preserve of those top decision makers. It also means that massive public funds have been squandered away in secret, without proper checks and balances, thereby sabotaging the entire national economy in effect.

We have to wonder, what other massive sums of the people's money have been squandered away in like fashion in past decades, especially with the two mammoth cash cows of the nation, EPF and Petronas.

This whole MAS fiasco simply proves one thing: it is too risky to put too much blind trust in the hands of too few individuals in government. Human beings are fallible and gullible. Even their best intention will lead the most enlightened leaders to unfettered abuse of power once they enjoy an overdose of public blind trust.

In fact, the whole tradition of Westminster style of democratic government is built precisely on the principle of mistrust in too much government powers. That is why a whole host of checks and balances are built into the political system, to monitor the conduct of those given the onus of managing government business.

Lately, I have sensed a subtle, tentative, but significant shift in the way our major institutions of state seem to be agitating for fundamental changes in their modus operandi. The process has been so slow and gradual that it is almost invisible. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of many small moves appears to be dismantling the mechanism of the iron gloved fist that used to rule the nation previously.

This sort of change in the rules of the game, and in the way the various discourses are allowed to get their fair hearing, may be discomforting for some. But in the long run, this will slowly open up our public space for a more democratic way of life.

Truly, for the first time in very many years, the icy political climate in Malaysia seems to be thawing at last.