The 11 ^th general election is nearing and I wonder how many are pondering which party they will be voting for this time around.

Dr Mahathir Mohamd, who was around for the past two decades and more, is no longer on the scene, so there goes one whom many reformists and oppositionists love to hate and blame for all the ills facing this nation. In his place, we have a replacement PM, many call 'Mr Nice Guy'. And he has been so very nice indeed the past 120 days or so, full of sweet talk and promises.

Pak Lah started of by declaring war on corruption, 'zero' corruption he declared. He next called for the truth from all and called for the people to work with him, well said. I was ready to pour out all but the various emails sent to the PM's Department have yet to receive a reply.

Agriculture and not mega-projects will form the major part of his economic initiatives. Improvement of the civil service, making it more civil and ensuring the public a better, more efficient delivery system are things we can expect soon enough. Red tape reduction is advocated.

We were told that an education revolution was on the way to ensure that the quality of education is improved; it has just become obvious that the quality of our education system (if one can call it that) was going down the drain. So a Royal Commission was expected but he boldly came up with a Royal Commission on the Police was formed instead and is presently going about its work with a former chief justice and ex-IGP in charge.

Ensuring more prudent fiscal policies and better utilisation of taxpayers' money, deferring or cancelling projects which are not needed in the immediate future, e.g, the doubling-tracking rail project made those against wasteful mega-projects happy, but the Bakun dam is to carry on.

A more transparent open-tender system was promised but with a catch as some 'special projects' will not be covered by this. And to show it was not just talk and talk, corruption charges were brought against the former Perwaja chief (and this was after a highway chase by ACA officers) and a minister. Eighteen more were supposed to be on the list but till now they have not been nabbed.

After the first 100 days, the local media crowed about them and roundly applauded the promises and sweet talking. The Star came out with a special: Pak Lah's first 100 days , even the foreigners joined in: Abdullah stages 'quiet' revdolution.

With all this, it was obviously time to call for an election and certainly a landslide by the BN under the new helmsman looks inevitable. So, I will vote for BN - when, after nomination day, I find that Mahathir's cronies are no longer on the nomination list and on the BN manifesto there are promises to carry out all that Pak Lah has promised over the past four months.

I will also be looking to see that those inhumane and anti-rights acts and laws like the ISA, OSA and Printing and Publishing Acts are to be abolished. More democratic space should be allowed and of course the return of local council elections. The independence of the Election Commission and ACA and Petronas, and they being accountable to Parliament would be things I would look for too. The promise of a truly independent judiciary would be an added sweetener.

With all that, I will vote BN, for sure.