A party will flounder if it does not have any bedrock principles or if the principles are built on shifting sands.

Anwar Ibrahim has squandered all the goodwill he generated in the aftermath of his sacking and persecution. He tried cleverly to reinvent himself as a 'reformist' hoping that the 'rakyat' would easily forget that he was a Mahathir and Umno man, responsible for much of the unhealthy division in our society using Islamic demagoguery and Malay chauvinism for political

advancement.

Anwar must realise his 'all things to all men' modus operandi is downright dishonest. He cannot use the language of secular idealism and democracy including the 'Jeffersonian Focus' in the West and when addressing a non-Malay crowd, and then be an Islamic demagogue who feels it is right that Lina Joy a Christian convert should be tried for apostasy in the syariah courts which he feels we should have 'more confidence' in. This duplicitous behaviour will be the unravelling of him and his party.

Anwar has also betrayed the people of Sabah over the Ma Zu issue in Kudat. Anwar has been silent on this issue. Abim, an institution which Anwar co-founded, has supported Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman in preventing the Ma Zu statue from being erected.

Given that gerrymandering, issuance of ICs to Muslim illegals, phantom voters, a fraudulent electoral roll are all part of the 'modus operandi' of BN hold on power, I feel the opposition - even in the most optimistic scenario of unity and cooperation - has an uphill task of even denying BN a two-thirds majority.

The opposition however is divided and PKR has an unprincipled person as its de facto leader.The non-Malays in the party, including the self-conscious 'intellectuals' of PRM have been taken for a ride. Those who remain are pawns or opportunists who are drawn to delusions of grandeur and powerless party positions.

Sadly, they could not resist their human desire for power and limelight, and were easily seduced by Anwar's rhetoric of justice, the primacy of human rights, freedom of conscience and upholding the secular nature of our constitution.

PKR and PAS currently owe their support to the Malays who have been dropped from the Umno gravy train and who are temporarily in 'protest'. All the Umno elite have to do is to throw a few more crumbs to these disaffected Malays and they will return to the fold resulting in PKR and PAS being crushed ignominiously at the next election.