I refer to Tai Lo Chin's letter Between undemocratic BN and theocratic PAS , which is a reaction to my letter EC: Adjudicator or Henchman? .

Tai's thinking and sentiment on the issues raised by him is fully understandable, and in fact it is quite representative of a fairly large proportion of Malaysian electorate who are middle-ground folks, not particularly passionate about politics or religion. Though dispassionate in politics, their thinking and decisions nevertheless have great bearing on the future choice of government in this country, due to the sheer weight of their numbers.

Hence, the issues and reasoning advanced by Tai need to be looked into closely and carefully.

The first thing to recognise from Tai's discourse is that he sums up the great political issue of the day as a simple choice between a corrupted and undemocratic Barisan Nasional and an honest but theocratic PAS.

In the course of his discussions, he quickly falls into the assumption that the Opposition can almost be equated to PAS. Corollary to that, if BN loses, Malaysia will become a theocracy.

There are two fallacies in the above line of thinking. First, Opposition is not PAS. Second, if BN loses, Malaysia will not be ruled by PAS.

Take the first fallacy. PAS is not synonymous with Opposition. In fact, it is not even close to commanding half of all the opposition forces, which are made up of PAS, DAP, Keadilan, PRM and many other people who are against the present BN government.

One should not easily forget that prior to the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim in 1998, PAS had only been occupying a very small presence in Parliament throughout our short history. It was the DAP which had been the dominant opposition force over the past three decades until the 1999 elections, and Lim Kit Siang had been Malaysia's 'Mr Opposition' all these years.

In fact DAP had been receiving 55 percent to 80 percent of Chinese votes all this while until 1999, when its Chinese support dropped to possibly 45 percent, due to extraordinary circumstances. On the other hand, PAS' Malay support had all along been dwarfed by Umno's vast Malay base until again, the fateful event of Anwar's sacking, when the table suddenly turned with massive defection from Umno to PAS, doubling the latter's strength overnight.

The doubling of PAS support overnight would not have taken place, if Anwar had not been imprisoned, as these migrants from Umno would certainly have followed him.

I am saying this because I want to draw a distinction between PAS traditional, hardcore supporters (whose proportion among the entire Malay population is relatively small) and the Umno migrants whose degree of allegiance to PAS political and religious ideals is distinctively different.

These Umno migrants, together with Keadilan (and PRM) and large numbers of other Malays who are disillusioned with Umno's bankrupt ideology can form a potential Malay mass movement that can incorporate the non-Malays to overshadow both Umno and PAS, if Anwar or someone of his calibre emerges to lead the movement.

Though this scenario is hypothetical at this point in time, the very existence of such political shades and the potentialities that these shades may present themselves in future political struggles are certainly important factors to consider in one's political calculations. This is particularly the case, if Malaysia is shaken again by another political earthquake of the Richter scale of the Anwar sacking or the 911 infamy, in which event Malaysia's political mosaic could be altered overnight.

Putting the above hypothetical scenario aside, let us take in the present status quo.

The present parliament of 193 members of Parliament is comprised of BN 151 (78 percent) and Opposition 42 (22 percent) which is made up of PAS 27, DAP 10 and Keadilan 5 (margin of error: 1 or 2).

Out of the total number of 193 MPs, 48 (25 percent) are from the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak, where BN has 100 percent control. The Opposition influence in Sabah and Sarawak is relatively small, and there is no sign that this will change soon. This means that the Opposition has to do the almost impossible of winning two-third of the Peninsular Malaysia seats in order to unseat BN in the coming election.

It is therefore important to take note that BN has a head start of 25 percent in the coming election, leaving only the remaining 75 percent (145 seats) in Peninsular Malaysia to be decided between BN and the various opposition parties.

Tai is worried that should the middle ground desert BN, Malaysia will become a PAS theocracy. So, let us see what happens when all or most of the middle ground sharing Tai's philosophy go against BN.

The first beneficiary will be DAP, which will draw in most of the swing votes of Chinese descent. Next will be Keadilan (including PRM), which will receive most of the Malay swing votes together with possibly a decent share of Chinese votes.

How would PAS fare then? It will be a case of mixed results, with Malay votes crisscrossing between PAS and Umno. Those Malays feeling uncomfortable with PAS religious rule, particularly the Umno migrants, will cross over to Umno as well as Keadilan. And the disenchanted Umno supporters with strong religious leanings may cross over to PAS.

It is difficult to predict the net flow of this crisscrossing, but judging from the results of the most recent by-elections in Kedah, where there was a minor flow of support from PAS to Umno, under an apparent 911 effect, it is reasonable to assume that PAS will not see any meaningful increase in support in an imminent election.

However, for the purpose of stretching Tai's fear to extreme, we will assume the worst scenario for BN. And it may look something like this (Sabah and Sarawak included):

The above table shows that BN can still rule with a comfortable majority in spite of a serious setback in Peninsular Malaysia, thanks to the solid block of BN seats in Sabah and Sarawak. It is also noted that PAS strength in Parliament is only one fifth of the total.

It will be seen from the foregoing that even in the most unlikely event of BN losing the majority, there is no possibility that PAS can rule alone, unless of course the middle ground has turned Islamic zealots.

So people like Tai can in fact help to prevent an Islamic scenario by coming out in full force to support the middle ground parties like DAP and Keadilan. In that way, even if BN loses the majority, we will see an opposition coalition dominated by the middle ground. That strategy is much more superior than his current negative approach of tolerating a corrupt regime out of fear.

Next, we will examine the other major issue raised by Tai, as elaborated in his following paragraph:

Though the BN's record in liberalisation and democratisation in past two decades has been dismal, the first tentative steps in that direction have been taken — hence, the Human Rights Commission, the dismantling of "crutches" under the affirmative programmes, the re-emphasis on English, the tolerance of malaysiakini and public debate/discourse, etc.

I will make point-by-point comments to the above.

Human beings have immense capacity to rationalise their wrongful acts by self-deception. Or else these wrongdoers will find life intolerable, as their conscience will be constantly reproaching them. That explains why habitual wife-beaters or drug dealers can appear as perfectly normal and cheerful persons to their friends.

People who are conscious of BN's evil deeds and yet are clinging on to them out of fear or greed, naturally have to rationalise their actions so that they can sustain their dignity and self-respect. They would look for bits and scraps of evidence to rationalise their support for the evildoers.

But the blunt truth is that Umno is corrupted to the core. Its entire hierarchy is built on government largesse and handouts (considered corruption in a democracy). This disease is so ingrained through two decades of corrupt rule that Umno's leadership will collapse if this support system is withdrawn, and no amount of tears from Mahathir can change this fact.

People who hope that perhaps the leaders will change, or perhaps they will slowly put the country on the right track (as suggested by Tai) should examine history carefully. Has there been any precedent of a long established corrupt autocracy changing over to a new leaf through self-renewal? History only points to instances after instances of these evil regimes being removed by force through rebellion or through self-destruction when the decadence become unsustainable.

Umno's glory is built on two pillars: racism and corruption. Malaysia is lucky that it has scraped by all this time, which is a tribute to the people's resilience and productivity, not a tribute to the rulers. But this luck is fast running out in the accelerating global revolution in technology and economics. Unless Malaysia takes the bold and decisive step to reverse this defunct course, it may be too late to avoid catastrophe, just like the damage accrued through the irreversibility of the drop of standard in the English language.

And whether Malaysia takes that bold step depends to a considerable extent to the decisions taken by people like Tai.