In Shakespeare's Macbeth , one of the witches predicted that ‘ the Ides of March have come but not gone.’

It was March (8 th to be precise) last year when the Malaysian political tsunami shook the very foundations of the Barisan Nasional component parties; and even shocked the leaders and members of the opposition parties of Pakatan Rakyat.

Among them, they controlled five states namely Kelantan (retained by PAS), Kedah, Penang, Perak and Selangor. Just imagine, in Penang, the top leaders in Gerakan were fighting for the chief minister’s post; and indeed it was a guessing game as to whom the plum job would fall.

The news media went to town splashing headlines of who was the blue-eyed boy of the taciturn Penang chief minister Dr Koh Tsu Koon then acting Gerakan president. When the results were out, all three prospective candidates lost their seats!

The job went to Lim Guan Eng, son of Lim Kit Siang. What the father failed to achieve with Tanjong 1 and Tanjong 2 , the once-imprisoned son achieved. Negeri Sembilan might have gone opposition as well. It was a pretty close call.

In the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, 10 out of the 11 seats went to the opposition. The component parties of BN lost two heads – MIC’s in Sungei Siput and PPP’s in Taiping. It appeared that the two parties were like chickens without their heads.

A good crop of top echelon leaders in MIC lost their pants; only three survived the storm out of nine. Gerakan was completely wiped out in Penang. It retained only two parliamentary seats. MCA managed to retain 15 seats out of the 40-odd seats it contested. It was a dismal showing. Umno did not fare any better.

Only Sabah and Sarawak saved the day for BN. Otherwise, they would be in the opposite bench in Parliament and Anwar Ibrahim would have been prime minister.

Where victory is concerned, everybody will claim that he is the one who was the catalyst. But where defeat is concerned, somebody must be made the scapegoat and all fingers were pointed at the PM as if others did not contribute to their disasterous outing.

So, Umno leaders brought out the knives and made him the sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered on March 31, 2009. But March has not played out yet. There are still 27 days to go; a week in politics is a long time and anything can happen.

Just yesterday morning, the Perak drama unfolded. The state secretariat building was ordered shut. Who gave the order? The circular which appeared and disappeared with alacrity was not signed. Whose hand was it? It was a cloak-and-dagger scenario. Roadblocks were put up. The state representatives, except the speaker, were locked out.

Profanities flew fast and furious in this civilised world. Since one door was closed, just open another door for the assembly meeting. For the first time in history, the assembly was held under a rain tree in the car park, without any chairs. The speaker in his proper gear called the meeting to order and within minutes three motions were passed unanimously.

The whole world must be wondering why the Perak assembly session was held under a rain tree. The whole world must be thinking that we Malaysians have gone cuckoo.

Have we gone crazy? The whole world’s economy is collapsing, if it has not collapsed yet. Millions of workers were thrown out or are about to be thrown out of their jobs like dirty rags. General Motors, Chrysler and Ford are in bad shape. Banks and finance companies in the US which gave out sub-prime home loans have either collapsed or are being rescued by the US government through bail-out plans.

Insurance companies like AIG suffered unprecedented losses. Even big banks like HSBC and CitiGroup are suffering losses. Even the greatest billionaire in the world, Warren Buffett, a major shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, admitted that some portfolios have gone haywire.

Not only US but also Japan, China, UK, Germany, to name a few nations are in recession and most people are deeply depressed. And yet, here in the land of Boleh we are snoring and in dreamland; and playing some funny political game in Perak and elsewhere.

When will our leaders wake up from their slumber and get serious? And one of the dumbest things which happened was the raising of toll rates in five areas. Fortunately, the fastest U-turn saved the day for motorists. Another U-turn was in the use of the term ‘Allah’ in the Catholic newsletter - gazette and de-gazette. Will there be yet another U-turn by the Perak Sultan with regards to the dissolution of the Perak state assembly?

May our leaders be endowed with some grain of wisdom as we face the economic tribulations ahead. Halt all the nonsense and get down to brass tacks. If you cannot do a decent job, ship out and give it to somebody who can do it.