I refer to this week's poll "Who is being seditious — Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad or DAP leader Lim Kit Siang?"

In my opinion, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's declaration that Malaysia is already an Islamic state and DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang's objection to it are both not seditious. Sedition incites people to hate the government.

However, if in layperson's term 'seditious' is taken to mean acting in a manner contrary to the secular constitution, then both Mahathir and Lim are guilty, with the former, more so.

In Lim's case, it is because, in the interest of electoral victory, he is prepared to let DAP enter into an electoral pact with the Islamists in PAS, even though DAP is out of the Barisan Alternatif coalition, just for the sake of opposing a common enemy in Barisan Nasional.

Mahathir however is more 'guilty' because, in spite of his stature, power and strength, he is not prepared to strongly defend the secularity of the Constitution.

First he has increased the religiosity of the Malay community by 20 years of Islamisation programme. This favours PAS because religiosity enhances emotional receptivity of Malay-Muslim constituency to PAS' politics of religion.

Then Mahathir removed Anwar Ibrahim and caused an outrage among the Malay Malaysians, driving large sections of them to the PAS-led Opposition camp.

And even now, in response to the Muslim Scholars Association of Malaysia (PUM) and other Islamic lobby groups' support of PAS Terengganu's implementation of hudud laws, the Mahathir-led Umno has not challenged the principle of unconstitutionality of such legislation in relation to the secular Federal Constitution.

Instead, Umno Youth Religious Bureau chief Shamsul Najmi Shamsudin in his own words " menyokong pelaksanaan hukum Hudud " (support the implementation of hudud law) subject only to the qualification that hudud punishment " mestilah dilaksanakan secara sistematik, adil dan berhati-hati " (is implemented systematically and in a fair and just manner).

Umno's response is 100 percent defensive. When it agrees to PAS' platform to Islamise the laws but disagrees only to its timing and manner of implementation, Umno demonstrated a lack of will having " mengaku salah dan kalah " (admit one's wrong and accept defeat) in the political struggle with its rival.

In doing so, it unwittingly collaborates in jettisoning the secular Federal Constitution and concedes to an eventual PAS victory for the country to be re-modeled to that of the original Islamic state as extolled by the Taliban of Afghanistan.

All of Barisan Nasional's achievements in secular economic development and its agenda of embracing modernity, globalisation, information technology by promotion of English — a secular cultural marker — will, as a matter of time, be reversed.

This is because in any struggle, success will always elude the defensive party. The dynamics of any struggle are obvious. An aggressive party pitches an attack. If it succeeds, it gains position. If it fails, it is status quo . The aggressive party does not lose any position.

Compare that with the defensive party. If it succeeds in defending, it merely preserves the status quo and does not lose position. If, however, it fails, it loses position. The defensive party has no upsides, only downsides, while the aggressive party, the contrary of that. Just like World Cup football: which team that plays defensively can reach semi-finals?

Over time, it is the aggressive party that will gain from accretion of positions conceded over time by the party that is defensive. When Umno agrees with PAS on similar rules of engagement based on the common platform of religion, with it being the defensive party and PAS the more aggressive, it has effectively conceded and lost the war, and it is only a matter of time before victory will be handed to the latter that will dictate the terms of armistice.

When it is no more a contest of principle between the banners of secular constitution versus religious theocracy, when it is agreed between contestants that Islamic state is the ideal, every move by the more aggressive PAS will be seen as "initiative" and every resistance on the part of defensive Umno will be seen as "procrastination" and over-caution.