The Malaysian deputy prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is these days as a cat on a hot tin roof. He is quick to take offence at whatever upsets his equanimity - civil servants, journalists, politicians, talk of being sidelined.

He has every reason to be nervous. Umno is in no mood for hectoring leaders with little to say. If he wants to say anything at all, it is to make sure he is not ignored. And the prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, calculates his future without his deputy in mind.

When he denies former finance minister, Daim Zainuddin, is arrested but does not know if he would be on the morrow, it shows that as home minister he is not in control and worse, he misleads and misreads.

When he accuses the leader of the opposition, Fadzil Noor, of a 'colonial mentality' for discussing the recent arrests under the Internal Security Arrest (ISA) and jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim's surgery impasse with the Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, he shows not confidence but nervousness.

Fadzil, who is also president of the Parti Islam Malaysia (PAS) raised only the two issues, and Abdullah found this objectionable. However, much Abdullah and others deny, Malaysia cannot answer international doubts about the two issues.

She insists she alone is right and Malaysians should support her or shut up. Nature abhors a vacuum, and she cannot but accept she made a ghastly mistake.

A hatchet man's impotence

Abdullah's complaint is proof yet of Malaysia's impotence. Anwar Ibrahim's travails looms large in the Malay cultural heartland. Umno is rightly blamed for what happened to him, and Dr Mahathir is forced to come to terms with him.

Daim is in the hook he is in because the Malay ground will no more let, after the Anwar affair, Umno dictate its life. He was besides Umno treasurer and finance minister, the key Mahathir hatchet man and led the conspiracy which felled Anwar. If Daim is the sacrificial goat, he would accept it without qualms.

Daim runs hither and thither after he resigned from his cabinet and Umno posts, valiantly trying to escape the noose that must come around his neck. Anwar blames him for his problems, and Umno is angry it knows nothing of its finances since Daim became treasurer two decades ago. Dr Mahathir to remain as head of Umno must now produce bodies. This is where Daim comes in.

The Umno annual general assembly this week was rumoured to consider a vote of no-confidence against Dr Mahathir or the supreme council or both. He brilliantly diverted attention from that to Daim.

But Dr Mahathir is not out of the woods yet. He has to convince the assembly he should be left unchallenged to lead Umno and the Barisan Nasional (BN) to victory in the 2004 general elections. But his master stroke is to address what weighs him down - the Anwar affair.

Much that happens in Malaysia these days goes over the politicians. Dr Mahathir can continue to excoriate Anwar and Anwar can respond in kind, but behind-the-scenes negotiations are in the air.

Neither side would confirm it; yet both are optimistic something positive would emerge - and soon. When the American ambassador called on Dr Mahathir apropos nothing recently, it almost certainly had to do with these talks. The talks, as Asiaweek reports, were in Tripoli, Libya.

Unresolved danger

Indeed, Dr Mahathir, when he met Fadzil and two opposition member of parliaments (MPs) recently, would allow Anwar overseas if he would call off the street demonstrations that reduce him and his government to putty. But that is at best a negotiating stance.

The word now is that Anwar would go overseas under escort and return to possible house arrest. Even Dr Mahathir now accepts that an unresolved Umno problem as Anwar is dangerous to him and Umno.

But talk to anyone in Umno or PAS or Keadilan, and you would be laughed out. Even close aides of both men deny deals discussed. Dr Mahathir is worried. He said, at a private meeting recently, calm returned to the country two months after the May 13 riots in 1969, but this man is dismissed and three years later gives him massive headaches.

One assumes then that should Anwar return to Umno, he is an unbeatable candidate for president in 2004. If it happens, Abdullah is on the outside. So, when he accuses Fadzil of a 'colonial mentality', it is to hope Umno would rally around him.

How could it when the Malay ground, unsettled as it is, is firm it would have nothing to do with Umno. Umno could have a chance should Anwar return to lead it. But can Anwar return to Umno without burning his political bridges. He did it once in 1981; could he the second time two decades on?

So, with the political reality hidden, for Abdullah to make a stand on PAS's 'colonial mentality' is to invite derision. Besides, in Australia, as in New Zealand, MPs talk to whoever they wants to.

In New Zealand, a foreigner who sees the prime minister must make an effort to see the leader of the opposition. Fadzil is the leader of the opposition. Downer could not refuse to see him. His parliament would not allow him to.

Abdullah forgets Umno leaders do call on foreign governments and opposition leaders. They should not, if his arguments are followed. Only a BN leader can. But then how many BN delegations have gone overseas to explain the country's policies?

What frightens him though is that even an Islamic political party leader as Fadzil Noor is not dismissed as a neanderthal any more. He is listened to with respect, and his views carry weight in foreign chancelleries.

The ground shifts

So, why did Abdullah make a fool of himself? In the confusing world of Umno politics, he is sidelined. Dr Mahathir is in no mood to listen to sanity, insists he alone is in charge, with even the succession, in his view, impermanent. Abdullah fights to retain his seniority, and finds it tough.

But in one sense the prime minister and he are on the same boat. The Malay ground is confused about Umno as its cultural protector, looks for alternatives. PAS is one corner with its Islamic world view and the multiracial Keadilan in another, neither no nearer to being it.

Umno runs hard to align itself with one or the other, a reversal of its fortunes since Anwar became the opposition icon. Abdullah is on the outside of this discussion.

So, the opposition is nitpicked for what it does and does not do. The opposition does not help its cause. It continually shoots itself in the foot. But Umno and its leaders can take no comfort in that.

It has lost the cultural ground, and without that, it is no better than the opposition parties it criticises. What happened to Anwar broke the back of Malay unity. For the fractured Malay unity to be repaired, Anwar must be brought back to centre stage.

Even Dr Mahathir, however reluctantly, accepts it. Umno's future depends on it. Which is why the secret talks are more important than the public attacks.