There are enough supporters and opponents who think that UMNO the party is in danger of becoming 'irrelevant' to future Malaysian politics. Yet some leaders behave as if the fallout from the 'Anwar affair' was a mere ripple, and UMNO is unsinkable.

If UMNO, the nation's political Titanic, remains afloat, it does so at a high price. The wide-spread belief is that a large part of its membership cowers in fear of a witch-hunt, chants a chorus of lies, stays mute in the face of injustice, compromises principles, scorns integrity and side-steps democracy when 'advised' by the Supreme Council to toe its line.

That's why Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has had so much trouble even succeeding at the "nomination round" for the May UMNO election. Given this state of affairs, democracy will be further derailed. Soon, UMNO members will forget the no-contest ruling for UMNO's top two posts. No one will again be interested to know if and how the UMNO presidency or deputy presidency can be challenged.

In one sense, the attention paid to the likelihood of Ku Li's challenge might not even matter. Things have got so bad they can hardly get worse – unless we miss the most important point of this latest episode, which is UMNO's malaise.

The Malaise will be the overriding but hidden agenda of its coming General Assembly. But this will not be resolved through the outcome of its finely 'orchestrated' election. Instead, the results may even deepen if not sow the seeds for the party's eventual undoing.

Presently no individual or faction within UMNO can credibly mount The Challenge. Room for rebellion is agonisingly small while the risk is chillingly high. Besides, a change in UMNO leadership may not lead to party reforms. No one knows this better than the party's president, who was once the party's fearless rebel but has since become its most intolerant steward.

If UMNO is unwell, why doesn't it tumble quickly? One reason is that UMNO embodies Malay culture.

It may sound far-fetched and simplistic to say so, but UMNO manifests Malayness, and the average UMNO member represents the quintessential Malay – gullible, weak, indecisive, yet defiant, ambitious and crafty. In UMNO's Malayness, one finds a fusion of feudalism and Islam, coexisting uneasily with modernism and irreverence.

UMNO has not quite had a distinct ideology. Instead, it has successfully manufactured Malayness by claiming its mission to be defending the Malay race, religion and nation (membela bangsa, agama dan negara). This has led many people to believe that UMNO is a Malay chauvinistic party. But it isn't so. Openness, good governance and democracy have never been UMNO's primary concerns. Still the party is one of Malaysia's most inclusive establishments. A Gujerati Muslim, an Arab Malay or a Sabahan Bumiputra can equally become an UMNO member.

Without being exclusive in its definition of a Malay, UMNO manufactured an encompassing Malay identity which it successfully used to establish the Malay as 'first among equals' in this nation, to redistribute wealth through the NEP, and to co-opt resurgent Islamic movements. All of this became the elements that fed into the project of congealing the Malay quintessence - which the party has done to a remarkable point and may provide it verve for several more cycles of its political karma.

But as the Anwar Ibrahim episode and its social, cultural and political consequences have shown, UMNO has reached the limits of its monopoly of Malayness. The party has finally reached a quandary as to how to keep on reinventing this Malayness. Proceeding from this point onwards would be the most difficult task facing UMNO because cracks in the party's life span have already started to emerge.

Herein also lies UMNO's danger of becoming irrelevant. If UMNO fails to project a fresh definition of Malayness, then the future belongs to some other players. UMNO may be a wealthy party but it will only be a shell that is unable to house the 'new' Malay.

Clearly UMNO has lost direction and dynamism. By the time of the Anwar affair, virtually all credible dissidents – who might have formed 'the conscience of the party' – had been flushed out from the party. Without them, The Challenge cannot become a reality.

However, dissatisfied UMNO members have little ground for complaint. They didn't bat an eyelid when unethical and undemocratic practices were rampant during the general elections. Why should they now expect their party election to follow standards that they weren't prepared to uphold earlier?

Fear, too, explains why nothing radical will happen in UMNO. People are reluctant to mount challenges not just because they may fail, but because of what will happen to them if they fail. The humiliation of Semangat 46 and Razaleigh and the horrors that befell Anwar are reminders that any challenge against the UMNO leadership must be a do-or-die battle.

There is another reason why UMNO will remain unchanged, stagnant and unable to reform itself from within. Some people think that replacing the present leadership will lead to reform and renewal. But that's practically impossible when UMNO's leading lights play fast and loose with concepts of justice, transparency, fairness and democracy. Just read Razaleigh's statements before and after he rejoined UMNO. Compare Rais Yatim's statements today with his book, Freedom Under Executive Power, which was written when he was with Semangat 46.

UMNO has not been reformed since Razaleigh and Rais rejoined the party. Why does neither of them speak of UMNO's deplorable state of governance? Why don't they re-issue the writings and statements they made years before re-joining UMNO? Are they no longer interested in the 'justice' they once fought for? One wonders why the grassroots are not more confused or disillusioned about the party's actual struggles given the pendulous swings to which principles are subjected.

As for those leaders who have been utterly 'loyal' to the party all these years, even less needs be said.

In short, don't look to UMNO leaders to lead genuine reform. They may now and then posture as defenders of this and that noble principle. But for them, staying aboard the gravy train of reward and power is the real thing. Principles can be traded-off or abandoned without scruple.

UMNO is stuck in inertia. Musa Hitam's recent speech in Johor was a veiled attack on the party's leadership and its undemocratic practices. Musa's widely publicised speech caused a stir among UMNO members (and many Malaysians) but couldn't initiate a tidal wave for reform. Those most moved by the substance of Musa's criticisms were upset, but not enraged enough to take up the cudgels for change. UMNO members and Malaysians alike have learnt to treat criticisms against the present order like water off a duck's back or as yet another daily offering that soon evaporates into thin air.

UMNO has not been spared the present regime's emasculation of almost every institution that can promote and protect civil liberties. Hence, the inertia of UMNO's membership is just as effective as outright repression in keeping 'people in place' and guaranteeing 'business as usual'.

When was the last real rebellion within UMNO?

When Musa Hitam resigned as deputy prime minister in 1986, he did not revolt. He simply gave up because he couldn't take the heat. Tengku Razaleigh was no rebel, merely a contender for the presidency. And if Anwar Ibrahim meant to rebel in 1998, his nascent mutiny was snuffed out even before it had a chance to erupt.

The bold and defiant Malay of whom Dr Mahathir was undoubtedly the last successful one is becoming an unknown protagonist in UMNO. In Malay theatre-parlance he would be the apt personification of the Pem-berontak Melayu Terakhir.

When a political party loses all spirit of 'defiance', it also loses all chances of vibrancy, reform and renewal. Losing much Malay support at the last election should have been enough of a 'wake-up' call for UMNO to invent a new and vibrant sense of Malayness. But it's not happening.

In UMNO's 44-year history, one of its chief strengths was its ability to co-opt different strategic Malay constituencies. It first depended on Malay teachers and religious leaders. Then it actively embraced Malay doctors and lawyers. After that it brought in radical Islamists.

Most recently UMNO took on board Malay businessmen and locked their class interests with the party's interests. Consequently, Malay businessmen are collectively UMNO's patron and money-ed backbone – but they are also the very source of the party's social liability.

Hence, whom, after the Malay businessmen, can UMNO ride on to evolve as dynamically as it once did?

UMNO itself has no satisfactory answer, as can be judged by the attempts by certain UMNO quarters to revive their obsolescent formula of calling for 'Malay unity' as if the Malays are a besieged community. Some UMNO politicians and a mainstream Malay daily newspaper have attacked Astro (the cable TV) for having 'too many' Chinese and Tamil foreign channels. But is this anything more than a pathetic admission that UMNO no longer offers anything more original than a worn-out claim of defending 'Malayness' against non-existent 'non-Malay threats'?

It is equally irrelevant to UMNO's claim on Malayness for the government to restrict the publication of Harakah. The template for a future UMNO has been laid down. So long as UMNO can project itself as the political embodiment of Malayness, it will survive. In this respect, PAS already poses an obvious alternative and a serious challenge.

But any redefinition of Malayness may not fall into either UMNO's or PAS' version. One hopes that the process of Malay politicisation may be entering a more complex but more enlightening phase – ironically because of the crisis which UMNO has caused.

It remains to be seen whether a credible challenge takes place in the May UMNO election that can lead to the party's renewal. If an unreformed UMNO politics continues to dominate Malaysian society, it does not take much to guess what darkness will be in store for the rest of us, who have been bystanders in this latest round of a charade of an election. We will be better off not to wait with bated breath wondering if all hell will break loose in the coming showdown. Instead, we should wonder if we are not in fact witnessing the twilight moments of one chapter of Malay history and the dawning of another. But pray that the next one will be less grim.