If outgoing prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had two faces, he would be wearing egg on both. One would have been hurled at him for his foreign policy position, the other from domestic sources.

But both show one thing: Mahathir is out of his depth. If he thinks he'll go down in history as one of the world's great statesmen and the greatest Malaysian leader, all's now being hopelessly unraveled before him. And that's only the start of his problems.

In the first case, Mahathir is acting up again - over Burma now. Some say he has lost patience with the military junta in Rangoon. More likely, Mahathir has lost face.

He can suck in his stomach and throw out his chest and look straight at the contemptible regime - the very one Mahathir invited to join Asean in 1997 - and demand the immediate release of pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

But it would be more like a mirror looking back at him. And there's egg on his face. Rangoon is laughing at Mahathir. And it can afford to turn its back to Mahathir. The reason: Mahathir's own regime's track record on political dissidents is just as pathetic as Burma's.

Jailing dissidents

On the one hand, Mahathir hides behind the loathsome anti-terrorist legislation, the Internal Security Act, which was introduced by the British colonisers - those he has always condemned and blamed for the country's nation-building problems.

On the other hand, he uses the ISA to marginalise political opponents of his rule and regime.

Mahathir is a hypocrite. The Burmese know this. But Mahathir just doesn't seem to get it - that in demanding Suu Kyi's freedom, he still keeps his erstwhile political opponent, his one-time protege, Anwar Ibrahim, locked up on 'sexed-up' charges.

(Anwar is currently serving a prison sentence for sodomy and corruption. He claims that the charges were fabricated but the government has denied this).

After Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first prime minister whom Mahathir ousted in 1969, it's hard to think of another Malaysian politician who has vaunted a desire for regime change in Malaysia as Anwar.

In the last week the nefarious nature of the Mahathir regime became more obvious. Anwar's jailers - the very senior people whose job it is to ensure that justice is not only done but be seen to be done - were promoted.

Judicial transparency?

Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim used one word to defend the promotions: 'transparency'.

This is laughable, given the record of transparency in policy-making in Malaysia, let alone within the judiciary. There are even more deep-seated and widespread rumblings within the legal fraternity, just as there have long been strong rumblings within the private sector over the 'transparent' way that the Mahathir government awards its business contracts.

If transparency is so sanctified in Malaysia, let the chief justice show the bases of the decisions to promote Anwar's jailers. So far he has talked in circles. He forgets the onus of proof. If transparency is so sanctified in Malaysia, it's definitely on show again today.

The government's contracts, awarded to a company to build school computer laboratories, collapsed into a sinkhole. Not surprisingly. The 'Ali Baba-ism' among many bumiputera businessmen is nothing new; it's been going on since the early 1970s.

Unmitigated incompetence

Malaysian transparency is pathetic. And that's putting it mildly. The money spent on these contracts, which has been frittered away by some unscrupulous and clearly incompetent Malay businessmen, belonged to hardworking Malaysian taxpayers. Not the government.

Who'll be accountable for these losses now? Whose heads will roll? The buck stops with Mahathir. Period. But he'll worm his way out of accepting responsibility as always. After all, who dares question him? The opposition political parties? A truant parliament?

Mahathir says the Anti-Corruption Agency will investigate if irregularities and corruption had taken place in this scheme. Heard that one before, too. Given the government's track record on such investigations - Perwaja, for one - don't bank on the regime coming clean any time soon.

Clearly it's incapable of honest government. That's partly the result of its unmitigated incompetence over good governance. Five years after the debilitating Asian economic crisis, and all the promises of change, nada. Kaput.

MANJIT BHATIA is managing director of AsiaRisk - a political and economic research and risk analysis consultancy in Australia. The writer specialises in international economics and politics and the Asia-Pacific region.