Everybody seems to be lambasting Home Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah) and Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Dr Rais Yatim for supporting repression in Malaysia. I, for one, am not bothered.

They are not in the position to institute democratic change.

The positions they have now merely tell them to suck up to the man they once fought during their 'team B' days in the old Umno.

If one is in their position, it is difficult to oppose the big boss. They risk getting sacked from power, and fading away.

They once challenged him, and almost faded away.

They do not want to do it a second time, and end up having the ruling party firmly controlled by sucker-uppers of the Sanusi Junid type.

They are merely waiting for the day Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad retires.

When he finally does so, they will be in the cabinet and start giving democratisation gradual concessions.

Their sifu , Musa Hitam, and another, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (Ku Li), will be behind them.

Abdullah, most likely to be the new prime minister, would definitely need Musa and Ku Li to advise him, and he will not be fully dependent on Mahathir and financial czar Daim Zainuddin.

The reason why Rais and his Semangat 46 returned to Barisan Nasional (not to Umno Baru, since Umno Baru and Semangat 46 are twin brothers born out of the dead Umno Lama), is because they had no choice.

They never did want to go to the opposition. Dr M did not want them in BN, unless they joined his Umno Baru.

Some of the team Bs, such as Pak Lah, Najib Abdul Razak, Syed Hamid Albar, Musa, Ghani Othman and Kadir Sheikh Fadzir joined Umno Baru, to make sure the party did not just contain yes-men, but also potential rivals and critics of Mahathir.

Not all the team Bs decided to join Umno Baru. The rest of them wanted to be in a second BN Malay party, which would be the watchdog for Umno Baru.

Mahathir did not allow this, and kicked the non-Umno-Baru team Bs out of BN.

They had no choice but to form Semangat 46 and join the opposition.

Semangat 46 was disbanded in 1996 and its members had no choice but to be in Umno Baru.

People like Rais, Pak Lah, Najib, Ghani and Ku Li may still be rooted to the Hussein Onn, Tun Razak Hussein and Tunku Abdul Rahman schools of thought, which mean democratic Dr M-ism.

They may seem to have betrayed their previous oaths of burning bridges with Dr M's Umno, but on a closer inspection they may have said the oaths metaphorically, and actually meant they would not become yes-men of Dr M.

In other words, they may be pretending to be Tok Ampu, but they are just waiting to take over once Mahathir retires, and distance themselves from his authoritarianism.

Rais' confusing statement on academic exercise simply means the views in the book are his personal views, and not the views of him as a government minister responsible to the Great Leader, whose view is the view of his ministers.