The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition has always prided itself as the epitome of 'national unity' in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, but an "unprecedented" ministerial memorandum urging the prime minister to review certain laws that are said to adversely affect the constitutional rights of non-Muslims has shattered that claim.

Although the MCA-inspired ministerial memorandum has been withdrawn as the result of public pressure that claim to be representing the Muslim majority, the question remains to be answered: Why did the non-Umno ministers take the 'unprecedented' move of the seeming breach of the convention of 'collective responsibility' in a parliamentary system that Malaysia has inherited from Britain?

According to Muslim critics of the ministerial memorandum, the signatories - who are all non-Muslims - intended to challenge the authority of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as well as the position of Islam in Malaysia.

However, another school of thought opines that the signatories of the memorandum were first emboldened by an earlier reported statement of the prime minister in being open to such amendments.

On Jan 10, a Bernama report quoted the prime minister as saying that "the issue of religious conversion needed to be spelt out clearly in the constitution and other laws to prevent confusion among Malaysians".

The prime minister was also quoted as saying that "many feel it is necessary to clarify the question in the laws and constitution to avoid further confusion".

On Jan 19, when Nanyang Siang Pau and Sin Chew Daily first leaked the news about a ministerial memo being sent to the prime minister, a daily columnist in the Chinese edition of malaysiakini , Yang Bai Yang, had already critically noted that the MCA-inspired ministerial memorandum was only an opportunist attempt to jump on the bandwagon of the reported statement made by Abdullah.

Yang also observed that before Abdullah made his position known, MCA took no public position on the issue.

Indeed, given the traditional pattern of political behaviour of MCA and other non-Umno component parties of the Umno-dominated BN, the argument that the 'unprecedented' ministerial memorandum was only made as the result, or reaction, to the reported Jan 10 statement made by Abdullah is not implausible at all.

Seen in this context, it could be argued that the prime minister had given a wrong signal to the signatories of the ministerial memorandum who hoped to 'play safe' while also claiming credit for 'daring' to champion the rights of their constituents.

Resistance to Pak Lah

Or was it a case of the signatories themselves interpreting or construing the reported statement wrongly?

Why was there no internal communication between the prime minister and the signatories of the ministerial memorandum?

A sharper and more straightforward observation has it that the prime minister did send the signal to the signatories to do what they did without realising that his own assessment of the forces of resistance to his idea was strong.

So after the belated and sudden discovery that the resistance was stiff, the prime minister quickly backed down shifting the blame, through proxies and mouthpieces, to the ministers.

If that is true, then the signatories of the ministerial memorandum has indeed been made scapegoats for the failure of the prime minister to give proper signal, or his lack of moral commitment to, what he had said on Jan 10.

In any case, even the damage control exercise continues to cause more damages to the credibility of the BN as a disciplined and coherent organisation.

This can be seen clearly in the first instance when Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's statement was publicly contradicted by International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz.

According to the Bernama report on Jan 20, Najib was quoted as saying that "the action by nine non-Muslim cabinet ministers in submitting a memorandum to the prime minister calling for a review of laws that affect the rights of non-Muslims was 'improper' and 'not nice'".

However, the same report also quoted Rafidah as saying that "the action by the non-Muslim ministers represented the views and thinking of non-Muslims regarding the issue".

She also reportedly said: "If there is inconsistency and misinterpretation and so on, if the procedure is not clear-cut, we should correct it so the public will not be confused and there is no incorrect interpretation"

Rafidah has since been publicly challenged by Perlis Menteri Besar Shahidan Kassim, who reportedly asked her to "withdraw the statement".

Messy and bizzare

Meanwhile, M Kayveas, the president of the People's Progressive Party (PPP), a component party of BN, reportedly called on the nine signatories of the ministerial memorandum to resign but he has also been publicly rebutted by his counterpart in the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), Samy Vellu.

And they are still slugging it out in the media.

MCA's president Ong Ka Ting also seems to face tremendous pressure from the party's grassroots and its hardcore constituency to account for the flip-flop in submitting, and later retracting, the ministerial memorandum.

According to Ong, the retraction was done "in the national interest" but his critics have countered by asking whether this was indeed in the 'national interest'?

The situation within the top leadership in BN is indeed messy and bizarre.

It has shocked many into a state of speechlessness and utter confusion. But given the state of the ruling coalition's leadership, do expect more confusion to come.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia. He is a former DAP member of parliament for Kampar (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily (now Sin Chew Daily ). He read political science and economics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.