The Malaysia-Singapore water talks is stalled because neither Kuala Lumpur nor Singapore would, indeed could, resolve it if one has an edge over the other. For it is in the political interest of both to see the other lose out. It has nothing to do with contracts, good neighbourliness or fair price. It has all to do with proving to each's ground the other is incorrigible.

For underlying the dispute - one of many - is the need to pressure its ground the other is to blame. The Umno-led government in Malaysia and the PAP-led one in Singapore have an uphill task to convince their traditional supporters that they alone can deliver. They have proved they cannot, and each behave childishly and undiplomatically to convince its citizens the other is devil incarnate. In other words, the pot and the kettle call each other black.

This is why Singapore breaks confidentiality of negotiations and documents by revealing not once, but several times, to "prove" Malaysian leaders are unreliable, do not adhere to contracts and, in the current US-sponsored war of Islamic terror, which it accepts without question, subtly implies that since Malaysia is an Islamic nation, its leaders are more likely to behave as Osama bin Laden than Donald Rumsfeld.

In Singapore's view, Rumsfeld can cause all the havoc he desires and be praised for it, but not if Osama does. So, she has to paint her northern neighbour in the blackest of colours for local political fence-mending, in fright, so that her citizens would rush to back the PAP's stand.

Why does Singapore take this view? The PAP's promise of continuous growth and unparalled wealth is but a mirage for the younger Singaporean, and as other underpinnings of the PAP-structured state crumble, the possibility of a non-PAP government is as possible in Singapore in the next decade as a non-Umno led one in Malaysia.