[Penganalisa politik berpendapat membicarakan Anwar dengan lebih pertuduhan lagi akan memusnahkan Umno dan Mahathir sendiri kerana kehadiran Anwar di tempat awam seperti mahkamah akan melonjakkan lagi semangat rakyat untuk terus berjuang. Ia juga akan mencetus lebih simpati kerana Anwar kini terpaksa berkerusi roda untuk berulang ke mahkamah. Risiko terlalu tinggi buat nyawa Umno untuk menghukum Anwar lagi.

Pemergian Daim selama dua bulan untuk bercuti menggambarkan ada sesuatu yang tidak kena. Begitu juga dengan hasrat Mokhzani meninggalkan dunia koporat untuk beraksi lebih di dunia politik sedangkan bakatnya langsung tidak ada. Seolah-olah ada jaminan dari seseorang untuk masa depannya disana (siapa lagi agaknya?) yang lebih menjanjikan keuntungan yang tiada tandingnya.

Isu politik wang dan kebencian yang meluap-luap terhadap gejala nepostima dan korupsi menyebabkan beberapa strategi telah diambil untuk menonjolkan ikhlasnya Umno (pada permukaan sahaja). Ini diharap dapat menaikkan sedikit sokongan rakyat buatnya yang sudah semakin berkurang itu. Keadaan ekonomi masakini menyebabkan golongan yang terlalu kaya di dalam Umno menjadi sasaran kemarahan akar-umbi sehingga BBM bertukar mengkritik dasar kerajaan yang tidak adil membantu kroni. Sayangnya ahli Umno tidak mendesak mereka ditangkap dan diadili - barulah terbukti keikhlasan diri. Kita pasti ramai yang terkeluar - termasuk si presiden sendiri. - Editor]

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010427/3/nvrn.html

Friday April 27, 4:11 PM

Risky road ahead for Malaysia's Mahathir

By Patrick Chalmers

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - certainty reigned in Malaysian politics on Friday after one of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's sons announced he quit his businesses and jailed former finance minister Anwar Ibrahim prepared to face more charges.

With 10 opposition activists held under laws allowing detention without trial and prosecutors due to consider more corruption and s###my charges against Anwar, analysts saw a risky road ahead for Mahathir.

Delaying Anwar's court appearance on Saturday could be one way to cool the political temperature said one local analyst.

"It's too risky. Why would they want to put Anwar back on the radar screen? He's already locked up for 15 years."

Mahathir sacked Anwar in September 1998 and he was later sentenced to 15 years' jail on corruption and s###my convictions he is appealing.

Malaysia's majority Malays remain deeply divided over Anwar's treatment, blaming the prime minister for his public humiliation.

Mahathir, Asia's longest-serving leader after 20 years in power, denies any irregularity, calling his erstwhile protege immoral and unfit to rule.

Anwar says he has been framed.

His court appearance would be a gift to his supporters, who could paint it as further persecution of a man now confined to a wheelchair due to an untreated back injury.

MONEY POLITICS

Mahathir, facing an opposition campaign accusing his coalition of cronyism, has stepped up the rhetoric against members of his United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) engaged in so-called money politics.

That tack heightened interest in Thursday's decision by Mokhzani Mahathir, one of the prime minister's sons, to withdraw from all his businesses after allegations about his involvement in government projects.

"I am stepping away from the corporate scene. I am attracting undue attention from what the companies I am managing are doing and a lot of it is untrue," Mokhzani said.

The 40-year-old, who is also a senior leader of the UMNO's youth wing, said he would now have more time for politics.

Money talk also heightened speculation about the future for Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin, whom Mahathir said last week was "tired" and would be taking two months off.

Daim, who talked of retiring before the 1999 election, has drawn praise at home and abroad for masterminding Malaysia's economic progress and pulling it out of two recessions, during stints as finance minister in 1984 to 1991 and since 1999.

But his close ties to business tycoons make him politically vulnerable in the current climate, as UMNO tries to deflect opposition charges in preparation for an election due by 2004.

Daim's leave taking comes as economic growth is slowing, the stock market looks sickly and foreign exchange dealers pore over declining foreign reserves data for signs Malaysia may change its ringgit peg from 3.8 to the dollar.

A Western diplomat said Daim's leave, little more than an absence from cabinet meetings and most official events, suggested something was afoot.

"Why announce he is taking two months leave when he is doing eighty percent of his normal job?

"There doesn't seem to be a plausible explanation unless it is to prepare people for his resignation in June."

The local analyst agreed it seemed likely Daim would go and suggested Mahathir, flanked by two economic advisers, could assume the portfolio himself.

Mahathir has held the job before, taking the reins for four months after sacking Anwar in 1998.

Daim, UMNO's long-time treasurer, dismissed speculation his break was anything other than routine.