For all its gloating rhetoric is Umno showing its true colours? Reports of certain Umno politicians being investigated for corruption while others who may be equally culpable remain untouched are disturbing.

While we may not like those unpopular politicians who now feel the sword of Damocles upon their political heads, nevertheless, what happens in Umno concerns every Malaysian who believes in fair play.

We expect Umno to set the example for did not Najib Abdul Razak, the future prime minister recently harp about the need for reform, not only in a systemic sense but in human character? So how does the purging of political 'misfits' and potential rivals allay our fears that Umno is not a democratic party after all?

The barring or blackmailing of politicians to withdraw their candidacy to make way for the 'chosen ones' is not democracy but dictatorship, and the modus operandi is not only unethical and immoral but possibly illegal. And we ought to feel a sense of moral outrage.

It is no mystery why supporters of the affected politicians are upset though for different reasons. Many Umno members are upset and rightly so.

What we see is the equivalent of the communist purge. During the Cold War communist leaders would remove those they didn't like or posed a threat to them by having them assassinated. Lenin, Stalin and Hitler and every known murderous dictator employed that method.

Umno may not shoot its undesirable comrades but isn't the threat of prosecution or the barring of certain candidates akin to pointing a gun at their heads? There is no physical violence but it results in the same unfair removal of a legitimate competitor. It is obvious those who don't fit in the agenda will be purged nevertheless. This is not democracy but conspiracy.

Is it possible that a political party that is intrinsically corrupt can run an administration without corruption?

It is disgraceful that money politics, an euphemism for bribery, exists in Umno as their own leaders have lamented and the latest events reveal. But to see Umno candidates legitimately vying for top positions removed by threats of prosecution, and to see the country's anti-corruption agency being drawn in seems to me like an abuse of power.

Sadly, one can only presume that what happens in Umno will happen in the Barisan Nasional coalition where ‘undesirable comrades’, and also opposition foes, are removed by hook or by crook. Winning is everything and the rules are only for losers.

It must be clear as a blue sky that those responsible will have no difficulty applying the same sort of tactics outside Umno. Is it any wonder that we see many patriotic Malaysians - who are only legitimately speaking out their minds and trying to make their country better - being victimised, motivated by the same dark force?

Now we see Karpal Singh being charged for sedition for wanting to sue the Sultan of Perak over the Perak political deadlock. Pakatan parliamentarian Gobind Singh Deo has been suspended from Parliament for 12 months.

What we see apart from the prejudiced manner in which the Malaysian Parliament is conducted, is the choking of democracy, against the fabric and intent of the constitution and all that appears decent only on paper.

Both opposition politicians and Umno members are prevented from exercising their rights and as Anwar Ibrahim has rightly pin-pointed, it is all about selective prosecution, the trusted method to destroy your political enemies. This is the real act of sedition, when the country's real national and legitimate interests and democracy are subverted.

You don't have to be a constitutional law expert to know that anyone can sue royalty after 1993. Criticise Dr Mahathir Mohamad all you like, but removing the royal immunity remains the country's watershed legal achievement for which he will be immortalised.

And you'd have to be blind and deaf not to be aware of the murmurs against the Sultan of Perak for his role in the political deadlock in Perak. Punishing bloggers will solve nothing. We no longer live in the Middle Ages, slavery was abolished, yet they would make us slaves again if they had their way.

It is an abuse of the legal system to charge parliamentarians for acting within their constitutional and legal rights.

What is happening before our eyes - and this is getting worse by the day - is the abuse of power by the use of threats, blackmailing, selective prosecution and persecution, and other unethical means to achieve political ends.

If they had done this legitimately they would have earned our respect but that they have resorted to such unfair and high-handed methods proving their unworthiness to be given the onerous mantle of government.

Their conduct deserves the rakyat 's scorn and reproach and one can only hope that those who love their country and don't want to see it going to the dogs will do something about it.

If I may borrow from Edmund Burke: ‘What is needed for such people to stay in power is for us to do nothing.’