It is a known and incontestable fact that Umno - as the backbone of the BN government - cannot and does not oppose the implementation of hudud in Kelantan. Either Umno is for or against hudud in Kelantan. In all reality, there is no third political option readily open to Umno or the BN.

The DPM (PM-in-waiting) says that Malaysia is not yet ready for hudud. He would not say that Kelantan is not ready. Is there any veritable Umno member or leader who has stood, or will stand, up to say that Kelantan is not ‘ready’ for hudud? No, not even our sometimes-rambunctious minister Nazri Aziz.

Hence, the MCA and Gerakan should immediately follow up on their threats to divorce Umno. Leave the Barisan now. Otherwise, they risk looking like battered wives who would make daily threats to leave their wife-beating husbands and yet never do. Umno cannot and does not oppose hudud in Kelantan. How is that different from the PAS stand?

Can PAS single-handedly realise hudud in Kelantan without Umno?

Can it ever be said that either the MCA and/or Gerakan is as equal a partner to Umno in Barisan as is PAS to PKR or the DAP in Pakatan?

Will the MCA or Gerakan, given their 50-year-old unbroken record of obedience to Umno, end up playing an even greater vicarious role in the realisation of hudud in Kelantan than either PKR or the DAP ever will?

Having made such public threats against Umno, the MCA and Gerakan will no doubt find themselves in a real Malaysian political anomaly. Pakatan, vis-à-vis its de facto chairman Anwar Ibrahim, also does not oppose hudud in Kelantan.

Thus, if and when the MCA and Gerakan do carry out their threats to leave the Barisan, they obviously cannot - upon the same stated principle - embrace Pakatan as well.

In the light of this possible anomaly, perhaps it might be (or would have been) better for the MCA and Gerakan to keep still and be silent like the MIC and PPP (or the PBS in Sabah or Kita in God-knows-where).

At least the MIC and PPP know their humble fates and little destinies. Unless, of course, the MCA and Gerakan believe that they are big enough and can somehow survive outside Barisan or Pakatan. They can try.

That is if they can get along with each other in the first place.

Perchance - in all this entertaining brouhaha - the political instigators and agitators par excellence from Perkasa are right for once after all. That it is all a ‘ sandiwara ’ or ‘ wayang kulit ’ (the local equivalent for which in Penang would be a screaming session of ‘ Hokkien Pahn ’ or ‘ Teowchew Pahn ’ with masks, costumes, painted faces and the attending vocal melodies.)