When the National Justice Party threw its first anniversary dinner early this year, the date had to be shifted many times. Various hotels that had accepted the booking suddenly informed the party they had to regretfully cancel the booking because they were told by "someone from the top" to do so.

The party had to shop around for a hotel that would accept its booking but none would. Finally, the only one that would, decided they could not, after all, accept the booking.

However, since this hotel had received the party's deposit they had a legal obligation to do something about it, so the hotel looked for an alternative hotel that would not mind taking over the party function. Finally, as a favour to this hotel, another hotel said yes, though reluctant at that too.

Other opposition party functions faced similar problems. Hotels that had accepted the organiser's money, on the eleventh hour, cancelled the booking and refunded them their money. The excuse given was that they had mistakenly double-booked the function room. Another department, they said, had taken an earlier booking, which they were not aware of. So they had no choice but to cancel the opposition party's booking.

This was, of course, not true because someone was sent to the hotel at that particular time and date and it was found that the banquet hall was closed. There was no function there that evening. They just did not want an opposition function in their hotel.

Another hotel in Kuala Lumpur, which was "notorious" for allowing opposition party dinners on their premises, received an order to close their premises. The government had declared that the hotel was "illegally built" and would be demolished because of this. This has frightened other hotels from accepting opposition party functions.

Today, there was an announcement that another hotel in Kuantan has canceled a booking to hold a stage play on its premises. The play is, of course, not complimentary to the government - to put it mildly.

Blacklisting of opposition parties and its supporters is not confined to hotel bookings. Bank loans have been recalled and bankruptcy action taken against those who are not able to repay their recalled loans within the specified time - normally 24 hours.

I was present in one such negotiation between a bank and an opposition party leader who was told her "problem" is not financial but political. She was told the bank is squeezing her for her opposition tendencies rather than her lack of business acumen.

She finally had to resign from the party "to concentrate on her business" while citing "differences with the party leadership" as the reason. I know it pained her greatly to have to resort to this, but the prospect of bankruptcy is not one that many can face especially if you have a large family of three generations dependent on you for their future.

Then there was the announcement by one of the state governments that no government official from that state was allowed to visit Terengganu or Kelantan - the two states under opposition control. These opposition states were out-of-bounds.

A further announcement was made that doctors, who were known opposition supporters, are to be "struck of the list". Government employees were not allowed to visit these doctors even if they were dying. They would have to look for an "approved doctor", a ruling party supporter.

Malaysia has a welfare scheme where a pittance of less than USD20 a month is given to the destitute. What USD20 a month can buy is beyond me. But, even then, the applicant for this welfare must first obtain the signature of a ruling party official to be eligible for aid. The party "commissars" has power over you and only by joining the ruling party and flashing your membership charge would you be guaranteed of welfare aid.

Does this not sound very familiar? And Mahathir is calling the Chinese Communists.

Being branded an opposition supporter is a "death warrant" in Malaysia. You cannot book hotel function rooms, your children cannot get scholarships, no one will be allowed to visit your clinic, your bank loans will be recalled or you will not get one if you applied, and so on and so forth.

Has this drained the opposition parties of its members? No! It just sent their supporters "underground". The opposition has many "closet supporters". People secretly support the opposition and, if they cannot do it openly, they will do it financially.

This has made it worse for UMNO. Many people "join" UMNO just to get a membership card, which is required to "get things" or to avoid getting blacklisted. At the same time they strongly support the opposition.

It would, therefore, seem like UMNO has more than 2 million members. In fact, the Barisan Nasional ruling coalition has a combined (claimed) membership of 4 million members. But, in the last general elections, the ruling party only received about 3.5 million votes. And surely some of those voting were non-party members as there are 8 million voters against 5 million registered party members from both sides of the political divide.

The opposition coalition officially has only 1.5 million members - that is, those registered. But they obtained twice that number in votes. This shows there are more opposition supporters than what is officially shown - and they are all below the surface.

The ruling coalition should cease their persecution of known opposition supporters and members. Allow the people to join the opposition and allow those opposition functions to be held. This would enable the ruling coalition to really gauge their strength as well as that of the opposition. Sending the opposition underground does not serve the ruling coalition. It is better you know your "enemy" rather than your enemy sits in your own party because they cannot afford to be seen as opposition.

Isn't it the Malay proverb that goes, "The enemy in the blanket is more dangerous"?

RAJA PETRA KAMARUDIN