I would like to commend Dr Syed Alwi Ahmad o­n his cogent and forthright views as opposed to the incoherent logic expounded by people like Manjit Bhatia and Kim Quek whose o­nly mission in life seems to be to criticise the present Malaysian government (and especially Dr Mahathir Mohamad) at every available opportunity.

It cannot be denied that Malaysia, in this day and age, is a Muslim-majority country. Which means that political power in Malaysia will continue to rest with the Malay-Muslim majority, given Malaysia's first-past-the-post electoral system - which is pretty similar to countries like the US, Australia, the UK and most of the European Union.

There is no point in talking about what the MCA has "given away", assuming it had anything to give away in the first place. Ditto, to a much smaller extent, for the MIC. That's the way the modern political game is played in "democracies" everywhere. You o­nly have to look at the shenanigans in the US Republican and Democrat parties or in Britain's Labour and Conservative parties to realise this.

I wonder why people like Bhatia and Quek have chosen not to take a critical look at a country like Singapore. Singapore's leaders have gone o­n record to say that it is unthinkable that the country's Chinese majority would willingly give away their political power.

Much of Singapore's attraction as a hub of investment and technology is precisely based o­n the "Chinese-ness" of the place. A refreshing change, although not spelt out in so many words, from the corruption, uncertainty and instability of its Muslim neighbours - read any analysis in Singapore's Straits Times and Business Times .

I wonder why Singapore can be praised for something like this, whereas while Malaysia tries to assert the concept of Malay political supremacy, all sorts of critics surface to carp and condemn.