After quitting BA, no one could sincerely accuse it of 'conspiring' with PAS anymore. BA is BA, and DAP is DAP now.

The decline and turbulence in MCA should also offer DAP a golden opportunity to recapture its lost Chinese ground.

However, DAP does not seem to concentrate on the proper and right agenda. Instead of mounting counter-offensives against MCA by building up its real strength on the ground, DAP is wasting time and energy trying to, directly or indirectly, assist Umno to break up BA, and smear PAS, Keadilan and PRM.

What is it trying to achieve, and what can it achieve by acting and behaving like a propaganda department of Umno and MCA against PAS, Keadilan and PRM?

DAP leaders seem to have forgotten that the New Straits Times and The Star are controlled by Umno and MCA.

Of course, DAP's press statements smearing BA are more than welcome because directly or indirectly, DAP helps Umno and MCA. DAP is supplying 'weapons' to BN to fight BA.

But would that help DAP ? No, BN being BN is bent on establishing hegemonic control. After BA is finished off, DAP would also be suppressed as a 'Chinese chauvinist' party. It is the classic divide-and-conquer strategy. Is DAP really that silly not to see the longer-term game-plan of Umno and BN ?

When the time BN 'slaughters' DAP comes, there will be no more BA, no more PAS, Keadilan and PRM to extend assistance, protection and solidarity like in the cases of Lim Guan Eng and Fong Po Kuan.

What DAP needs to do now is to extend its strategic foresight slightly beyond the 2004 general elections. In short, myopically insolvent and incompetently foolhardy DAP leaders are the worse enemies of the party.

DAP's future and fate are now in the hands of its top leaders, and no one else.