Recent reports of PAS cosying up to Dr Mahathir Mohamad over his criticisms of Pak Lah smack of unprincipled political opportunism. Wasn't it PAS which benefitted from the voters' disgust in 1999 at Mahathir's underhanded treatment of Anwar Ibrahim? And now suddenly Mahathir is PAS' paragon of virtue?

It should be obvious to seasoned observers that Mahathir's biggest concern upon giving up power was the protection of the dark secrets of his administration. Granting of executive immunity is not part of our political tradition, so it was imperative that Mahathir selected a successor whom he was confident would do his bidding in this matter.

Benign Pak Lah was his obvious choice for this reason. After all, by Mahathir's own admission recently, Pak Lah had no other claim to fame in statecraft to merit national leadership.

So it must have been to Mahathir's utter dismay that Pak Lah did nothing when the courts released Anwar Ibrahim. The floodgates were opening; Anwar's civil suit against Mahathir and Sukma's coming retrial are foreboding signs of things to come. Mahathir may have to testify under oath in a court of law that he has no control of.

I feel sure that these are the events that really drove Mahathir to decide that Pak Lah has to go. The professed issues of the crooked bridge, APs and Proton are just trivial smokescreens. After all, Mahathir's own record of due process is more than appalling.

I suppose, just like his treatment of his former prodigy Anwar, Mahathir giveth and Mahathir taketh. But surely, Mahathir could not publicly attack Pak Lah over Anwar's release. That's just not cricket.

But unfortunately for Pak Lah, a frisky son-in-law and his horde of carpetbaggers drunk with newfound power gave Mahathir enough ammunition to discredit Pak Lah's administration.

So is PAS present adventurism nothing more than an amateurish attempt at fanning a rival intra-party discord? Or does it reflect a deeper lack of principle amongst PAS young Turks leadership, desperate to unshackle itself from an inherited narrow moral code it never really believed in?

It seems to me it's the latter. Fighting for the truth is not in vogue for Malaysian politicians, even those of the Taliban persuasion.