Once executive power is able to suppress the legislative branch, preventing any effective participation by the public, it is able to dictate law according to perceived needs to maintain itself in power. Democracy is then lost. History tells us that once lost, democracy is difficult to restore.

Difficult, yes, but not impossible. In those instances where democracy has been restored, it has occurred in stages. The first stage is public awareness that human rights have been lost. The second stage is a general recognition that the executive is both cruel and corrupt. The third stage is the strong desire on the part of the people to recover their lost rights and end the plunder and cruelty of the insensitive tyrant.

Malaysia has already reached the third stage. An honest election today would change the government, bringing in needed reforms. The immediate problem is that elections are not honest, and are not scheduled to occur nationwide for more than two years. There is to be a statewide election in Sarawak (one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo) in the coming year, and the tone is for a spirited contest between the entrenched incumbents and an aroused opposition.

The people of Malaysia are not only faced with total loss of their human rights. The form of government practiced by the party-in-power is known to be draining dry the various public welfare and pension funds to enrich the ministers and a few political party hacks who act as their nominees.

The ministers are but co-conspirators who express disagreement only when they suspect uneven distribution of the spoils. Seeing ample evidence of this piracy and plunder, the public ire is now sufficient to trigger widespread displeasure, and the prime minister's clique is sorely sensitive to this Achille's heel.

The prime minister, a lean and mean political machine, never retreats unless there is a serious threat, and he saw this threat in the planned nationwide picket of a labor union coalition which represented nine million members of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF). The prime minister interceded at the eleventh hour with a letter promising "review" of the contested issues, and afterwards settled a paper title on the union leader to the hoots of his members.

It has not settled the more material matter of the EPF machinations. The books of the EPF require careful examination, going back for the last decade. The day-to-day activities of the professional panel, which decides all investment policy, both purchases and sales, must meet minimal standards of prudent financial planning. A competent committee representing the contributors must be allowed to oversee and approve the investment panel's decisions.

The MTUC is only one organisation insisting on an audit of the EPF books. Though in the forefront, other NGO groups are forming to also demand reassurance that the pension fund is secure, being managed in a sound manner, and that the funds have been preserved in the recent downturn of the economy. Failure of the prime minister to provide the necessary cooperation as promised is certain to be a focal point of public irritation.

The GDP figures presented for the first quarter confirm that the economy is weak, and getting weaker. Many areas are in negative growth, though the official figures are carefully presented in an effort to to conceal this. There are, however, numerous simple ways of making an independant survey, from counting the number of lit hotel windows after dark to surveying taxi drivers. Driving by the EON distribution center in Shah Alam reveals acre after acre of unsold Proton cars, with no room left to store any more. Yet official figures report strong growth in domestic car sales.

The steepening decline in the economy is certain to increase the number of unemployed. Official figures do not reflect any increase in unemployment, but the number of people who apply for any advertised vacancy is sufficient to cause alarm. Government credibility is low, caused by repeated crude attempts to deceive, even the figures reported by the central bank are suspect.

The central bank is suspected of cooking the books to order, just as independant auditing firms in Malaysia are required to do in order to secure repeat business. In this way a loss miraculously becomes a profit, with none the wiser. Only the absence of any dividend tells the tale.

The prime minister feels sufficiently secure to silence and taunt the opposition, directing the police to their dirty work, and his accomplices to their stagecraft. At regular strategy sessions he wields his wand of wanton power. He holds a leash on the prosecutors in the AG's chambers.

Several judges are still in his pocket, and there seems no way to remove them. Shame is not sufficient, if so the contemptuous stares and studied shuns of their sturdier colleagues would have withered them long since. One concludes they are joined with him in an evil alliance from which they cannot, with wisdom, withdraw.

What will the people do? In the final analysis, the people still have the ultimate power to bring the country to a halt. There is, even in an evil dictatorship, the freedom of democratic consumer choice. If the people do not like the editors of a newspaper, they can choose not to read it. The government may howl, but it is the opposite of violence, not even requiring that one leave the house. The streets will be only full of lonely riot police, glint-eyed, steel-jawed, staring grimly ahead in an impatient wait for an innocent woman's hair to pull, a young man's skull to smash.

The people may choose to boycott new car dealerships. If new cars are not bought, assembly plants will close, steel mills to follow. Numerous suppliers of batteries, tires, stereos, air conditioners and other auto industry items will also close. The ripple effect is enormous. Only the construction industry is more sensitive. The very threat of a nationwide boycott against new car purchases attracts immediate attention.

That brings us to stage four, which is the active and widespread display of dissatisfaction by the people. The arrests of the husbands and fathers of the opposition workers by the hated special branch, which uses torture without mercy (e.g. shoving a rubber hose into the stomach then withdrawing it quickly), has brought a new dimension of rage onto the scene.

The transition into stage four is now well underway, and what this means for the country and the economy cannot with accuracy be foretold. What is clear is that the prime minister has his hands full, facing a fury of fires, fierce, fed and fanned.

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