Ever since its inauguration in April 1999, Keadilan has been specifically targeted to be a victim of judicial abuse of power, police repression, media distortion, engineered betrayals and state-sponsored calumny. Its leaders are detained, disqualified as electoral candidates or simply bought over.

On the opposition front, Keadilan has also to face the haughty perfidy of DAP and the arrogant folly of PAS' conservative faction. With the benefit of hindsight, these two so-called opposition parties are in essence part and parcel of the divide-and-rule system of politics in Malaysia.

While DAP attempts to outdo MCA and Gerakan in playing up Chinese fears and anxieties, the conservative faction of PAS and Umno compete only to show which party is more 'Islamic'. In these circumstances it is not surprising that Keadilan did not perform well in the 2004 polls.

What really surprises is that there are still leaders like Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Tian Chua, Mohamad Ezam Mohamad Noor, Azmin Ali, Dr Lee Boon Chye, Irene Fernandez, Dr Xavier Jayakumar, Abdul Rahman Othman, Dr Mansor Othman and Cheah Kah Peng who have survived the five-year onslaught with fortitude and keep the standard flying high.

If we can read Keadilan's candidates list for the March general election carefully once again, surely we cannot fail to notice that it put up many highly qualified men and women of all races and faiths as candidates. Moreover, Keadilan absolutely eschewed communalism and religious extremism during its electoral campaign.

From the perspective of DAP's or PAS's type of realism, this looks silly and na V ve. But that is exactly the principled and non-negotiable commitment of Keadilan to ethical politics and to the maintenance of inter-racial and inter-religious harmony in the democratisation process.

In the 2004 polls, Keadilan's voice of exposing corruption, cronyism and nepotism might have been drowned out by the even stronger noises of racial and religious communalism courtesy of Umno, MCA, Gerakan, PAS and DAP.

However, I believe that, given time and effort, true voices will soon prevail over empty noises after Malaysian hearts and minds have settled down rationally and begin to see things clearly with perspective.

Meanwhile, Keadilan should see the past five years as a warm-up for a long-distance marathon race ahead. The ultimate goal of Keadilan is the transformation of Malaysian society from a communal structure into one that upholds freedom and other universal values for all Malaysians.

Conceptually and ideologically, the party has begun well. It is now only a matter of widening and deepening its support base, correcting some errors and mistakes and winning over the hearts and minds of temporarily misguided opponents and enemies with patience and open-mindedness.