The letter Penang needs to shine its own pearl by Khoo Kay Peng refers.

It is indeed shocking that the Penang state government refuses to enforce bylaws governing cleanliness and transport for fear of a backlash from voters. This is an abuse of power on the part of the lawmakers. They are using non-enforcement of the laws to buy votes from the voters. This is a blatant abuse of government power to serve political interests.

With due respect to the Gerakan leadership - who are the first to mouth 'good governance' to all the ruling parties - I would like to ask: How can you allow this abuse of power to go on for so long and to what extent has your long grip on Penang's chief ministership depended on such unhonourable, illegal and even criminal interference into the duties of law enforcers and civil servants?

If the outward problems (public transport, floods, cleanliness etc.) are not enough to reflect the rot in Penang, we would like to add another one - lawlessness. When the lawmakers themselves do not enforce their own laws, no one else would respect the law.

When there are wilful law breakers around, just imagine the resultant chaos in society. Is this not what is currently happening before everyone's eyes in Penang ?

While we cannot change Penangites for another set of residents, we can change the ruling parties of the day. It is meaningless to blame the people - the Gerakan-led Penang state government should pull up its socks after staying in power for more than two decades.

To take up the issue further, I would like to point out a more pertinent factor to explain the unsatisfactory situation in Penang - Gerakan's unhealthy reliance on Umno's votes to stay in power. Thus, it is not so accurate to say that the Gerakan state government is afraid of the voters's backlash.

Actually, Gerakan's reliance on Umno makes the former back off whenever the latter's politicians come in between. For example, the numerous 'urban renewal' projects - which are no more than over-priced re-pavement exercises in the urban centres - are taking years to complete causing heavy losses to the shopkeepers and great inconvenience to community.

Are there any voters who can say they are happy for this condition to continue other than those few party-affiliated contractors who had been given a golden handshake to run the projects at their own sweet time?

Why has the Penang state government not done the popular thing by bringing in the entire force of the laws upon these contractors to compel them to complete their jobs on time? Is it because some other people have come between the law and its enforcement?

An unhealthy political relationship in the Penang state government is at the base of the blatant lack of accountability which all can observe in the state on a daily basis. The political parties rule together but none would be accountable.

One make the laws and another profits from frustrating its enforcement. Perhaps only the people can break the stalemate for their own good - they do have the choice to elect another set of better structured and more accountable parties to run the state.