An incident springing from the uproar created by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's virulent attack on Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has shattered the myth of power sharing among the coalition partners in the Barisan Nasional (BN).

Acting BN Backbenchers Club Chairman Raja Ahmad Zainuddin Raja Omar yesterday led all Umno members of parliament to visit Abdullah to express their full support to the prime minister in the wake of Mahathir s unprecedented frontal assault on Abdullah s leadership.

The strange part is none of the members of parliament from the other component political parties of BN were invited to the meeting with the prime minister. Deputy Backbenchers Club Chairman Ting Chew Peh - who is from the second largest component party, the Malaysian Chinese Party (MCA) - said that he had not received any invitation to the meeting.

The latest ruckus kicked up by Mahathir has been given so much serious attention by leaders of the ruling clique and so duly sensationalised by the local media that the whole episode has acquired an air of national crisis of confidence in the current leadership.

Since this is a national crisis originating from a much-worshiped former national leader challenging the present leader on national issues, surely the solidarity of support for the PM from members of parliament must also be national in nature, at least from within the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional. Then why were all the members of parliament from all the other component parties of the coalition excluded from this vital show of force in favour of the present national leader at this hour of crisis? Isn't the support of all the other component parties relevant and important?

The answer is an obvious no. In the eyes of Umno, all other component parties do not count when it comes to the crunch. Umno, and Umno alone, decides on the direction this country must take. Other component parties have no say.

This episode must have debunked the claim of BN's power-sharing among the races as the secret of Malaysia's so-called success as a model multi-racial country as repeatedly hyped by both the present and the former prime ministers. In fact, if one looks deeper into the governance between the two prime ministers, there is very little difference in substance, despite the wave of criticism stirred up by the former prime minister.

The only difference between the two is in rhetoric, with the present prime minister vowing to reform the plagued rule of his predecessor, but proving himself unequal to the task. This subject is, of course, outside the scope of this brief write-up.