Is it still a surprise to Malaysians when government leaders do things like sending best quality timber to help build Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's house? The former prime minister says it all: 'What's wrong?', echoed by the present deputy prime minister: 'There is nothing illegal.'

What can we expect from the same people who built Putrajaya? Putrajaya is the symbol of feudalism in this country. The executive branch of the government decided to build for itself the most opulent, luxurious and excessive palace of the gods.

Never mind that it has removed the site of government far beyond the reach of common Malaysians. Never mind that less than one percent of the Malaysian population has used public money to build for themselves the best buildings, with the best landscaping, the best schools, the best shopping malls and have fantastic bridges not for utilitarian but for mere aesthetic purposes.

Of course, it is perfectly legal for don't they have a two-thirds majority in parliament?

In building Putrajaya, they boasted that it symbolises modern Malaysia of the 21 ^st century. In fact, with one stroke, they took Malaysia centuries back to a feudal age when the rakyat kowtowed and kissed the hands of their ruler lords.

This is the legacy of the political forces newly re-elected with a whopping landslide. People of Malaysia, what is a few pieces of timber (only worth about RM100,000, says the man himself), they ask?

They can't see what the fuss is. They really don't get it. Those whose political agenda is to keep Malaysian society in iron-cast feudalism are incapable of seeing what's wrong with Mugabe building for himself a 25-room mansion.

It is never good news for Malaysians when the government answers only to itself.