Ten days before he left for his supposed holiday, a dozen Special Branch officers flew into Buenos Aires to assess if the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, could holiday at his ranch there without getting caught in the political fracas, and arrange for a quick getaway should it be needed. A wise precaution amidst the continued rioting in the Argentinian capital. Another is his decision a week before he left for New York to have the defence minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, accompany him. The minister's aides are angry at this disruption of his plans, and at such short notice. But a wise precaution. He cannot afford a political conflagaration caused by two of his key ministers when he is away. It goes without saying that one man who believes he, not Dato' Seri Abdullah, should be the next prime minister, is the defence minister and UMNO vice president. But, on the morning after, both might be left at the start, but that is another story.

But as the Godfather, in Mario Puzo's novel of the same name, says: "My friends I keep at a distance; my enemies I have in my sight." Dato' Seri Najib an enemy? Of course not. But he should not be in Kuala Lumpur making it worse for the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, than it already is. To the latter goes the honour of the flak from the appeal to the Federal Court by the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. That man, in the prime minister's view, should be allowed to stumble on his own. The Federal Court continues the appeal on 25 March to put a spoke in the prime minister's travel plans: he may well be forced to forgo his presence at the Sepang F-1 championship race ten days earlier.

So, after the World Economic Forum in New York, he flew off with a party of 80 to Antarctica, a visit so important, so he said, that he had to miss the MCA's annual Chinese New Year celebrations. He is quoted as saying in the Malaysian newspapers that "the opportunity to visit the Antarctica comes once in a lifetime". But why is this visit important now? Could it not have been arranged for some other time? Be that as it may, the entourage includes business men who paid heavily for the privilege, journalists, and others. The group breaks up from there, with a small group flying with him to Argentina, where he would have his holiday and the others be around at a safe distance, and return home on 28 February.

A week later, he flies to Poland and Germany, his visit to Moscow at risk after his unwise comment about the Russian presence in Chechnya. Since the formulated it is the same Mr Vladimir Putin who is Russia's prime minister, a miracle it is if Moscow is on his itinerary now. It is when he arrives in Germany that his plans become murky. He is rumoured to need surgery for his hip; if true, it would be done there. His office is vague if he would be at the F-1 championship. If he is here for it, he cannot leave soon after. So, the Federal Court hearing would happen when he is in town. He does not want that. His office promised to confirm his presence before he left, but has yet to.

But could the Prime Minister visit Germany without Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's surgery for a bad back -- one which has him in a neck brace, in a wheelchair and in intense pain -- resolved. The prime minister turned his former protege's medical treatment overseas into a political issue, insisting he should have it in Malaysia when the recommended procedure was not; now he goes overseas for a procedure for which local expertise is deemed better than average. But what is allowed Zeus is disallowed the cow. It is clearer by the day that every move of his is dictated by the "Anwar factor", more so now than at any time since the two men fell apart as mortal enemies.

This not is not lost on those who prepare for the succession that must come sooner than later. Dato' Seri Abdullah does not have the clear run the advantage of office gives him. Dato' Seri Najib would not allow it. He fights a rear-guard battle. My old friend, the Hermit of Langgak Golf, remains a perennial to succeed, but only when the present frontliners cancel each other out. He himself rules himself out, so he tells me. The front runners form strange alliances, with the Malay genius reflected in the speed with which the UMNO warlords change sides that one does not know from one moment to the next where they stand and who their mentor of the moment is.

This is Dr Mahathir's nightmare. For this is the continuing fallout of his unthinking humiliation of a Malay chief in defiance of Malay feudal conduct. More than that, it is a fight for the Malay soul. The Anwar affair dispossessed UMNO of it, and its attempts to bring it into its heart is complicated by the still unresolved matter of his humiliation. So, while Dr Mahathir exudes a confidence to suggest he is as strong as ever, the nightmare which threatens to confine him to history's dustheap is real indeed. He cannot turn the clock back. He does not know how to stop his ministers from snapping at each other. Nor prevent them going at each other's throats, as Dato' Seri Abdullah at the de facto law minister, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim's recent comment about illegal immigrants.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my