COMMENT I was seated in an Umno office once when a MIC member unwittingly interrupted my meeting with the branch secretary. He made his way into the office cautiously, delivered a package and lifted the secretary's hands before planting a polite kiss. The secretary did nothing more than to wave him off.

I was made to understand later that the three MIC members whom I saw camping at the main entrance of the branch office remained permanently there and hardly ever returned to the MIC branch office that is located a short distance away from the Umno office.

The modus operandi, according to my source, was to linger around the Umno office so that they would get first word on small contracts, such as tarring the road or fixing a light on the main street in a largely semi-rural population.

They would then execute the job once the project had been approved, even before they are given any advance payment and later linger around to claim the money for work done. In short, they were constantly rolling on a deficit, their political inroads rather limited to finding work rather than actually helping fellow constituents...