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Because as long as Umno is in power and as long as Umno politicians equate a loosening of their grip on institutions to the loss of Malay power and the loss of their ability to control the outcome of important decisions in the country, Malaysians will have to live with compromises every day of the year.

The Opposition and civil society have assailed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's much vaunted reforms. They charged that the MACC and JAC have been watered down because of political compromises.

They are troubled that all the important appointments to the MACC will be made by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on the advice of the PM and committees set up to ensure the integrity of the commission will be beholden to the PM.

DAP's Lim Kit Siang said that this structure makes nonsense of the principle of parliamentary responsibility of the MACC.

Another group felt that the MACC Bill should spell out clearly that the Attorney-General does not have any control or oversight of decisions to prosecute corruption cases.

Critics of the JAC believe that the PM should not have final say of appointments and promotions to the Bench. The JAC Bill proposes that a committee of nine individuals — five judges and four eminent persons — shortlists candidates for judicial appointments. The PM has a choice to accept or reject the recommendations.

Former High Court judge Datuk Shaik Daud Shaik Mohd Ismail said: "Giving the power to the PM to reject the recommendation defeats the purpose of the commission, which is to select qualified people.''

He noted that under Section 27 of the JAC Bill, the PM can continuously reject recommendations from the commission until he "sees the person that he wants to appoint.'' In short, this means that he can ignore the commission.

Shaik Daud is right, of course. A more palatable selection process would have been for a JAC comprising judges, lawyers and respectable individuals to submit a list of candidates to the PM for his consideration. In this system, the PM would have to give his reasons for rejecting the candidates and not be allowed to reject more than two sets of candidates to the Bench.

But the simple fact is that no legislation which aimed to take away the powers of the PM to have influence in the effort to tackle corruption or appoint judges would have seen the light of day. Or even pass through Cabinet, for that matter.

Anti-Corruption Agency officials said that they had to send the legislation to the Cabinet for fine-tuning no less than seven times. Any move to make the MACC answerable to Parliament would have been rejected by the Cabinet and could have set off a revolt by Barisan Nasional lawmakers. As it is, some BN MPs are troubled that a stronger MACC could be "used" by the Opposition for a political witch hunt.

Similarly, as Datuk Zaid Ibrahim found out in bitter fashion in July, Umno ministers in the Cabinet were dead set against any move to usurp the PM's prerogative in making appointments to the Bench. They also rejected his idea of having a 13-member JAC, which would have comprised judges from Sabah and Sarawak and a representative from the Bar Council.

The former de facto Law Minister was attacked for not understanding the aspirations of Umno and the Malays by some of his Cabinet colleagues.

During these robust sessions, Abdullah kept silent, perhaps realising that the JAC or any of his reforms were headed for no-where land unless his party men could be assured that their hold on power and the important institutions would be safeguarded. Along the way to keep his reforms alive, he compromised. So if the Opposition calls the MACC and JAC as compromises, it is right.

As Abdullah noted in an interview with the Sun recently, even if 90 per cent of the country is behind him, the sentiment in Umno is just as important to him.

The Umno of today is still suspicious of change and reform. Abdullah's MACC and JAC is a product of this philosophy. In some ways, it is remarkable that he has managed to get his reforms this far.