Thanks to Arbibi Ashoy for confirming that Islam is not synonymous with democracy, which contradicts what PAS officials have been saying.

In my opinion, there is no particular ideology that can create justice or freedom. In the end this is only achievable by the people.

However, unlike other ideologies, democracy facilitates the advance toward justice, equality and freedom. Allow me to borrow Arbibi's US example of democracy. US' democracy was created following independence from the British monarchy. The constitution was created when slavery was a common practice. But over time, its constitution allowed the slaves to be freed, by constantly working toward equality for all its citizens.

While there has not yet been a person from a minority group who has ever taken on the post of the US President, its constitution however continues to leave the door open. As such, only time and the right person is needed for it to happen.

In Malaysia, the constitution also guarantees equality for all its citizens regardless of race and religion but PAS' Islamic state blueprint , which reserves prime ministership to Muslims only, is against the constitution. If this is the example of taking only the best of democracy, then PAS must be taking the best for itself and not others.

On the matter of independent advisor, why does it have to be in the form of a council of ulama ? I think that a number of NGOs, as well as other religious groups are as qualified.

In addition, the council of ulama is far from independent considering that PAS, or at least a significant part of its members advocate for political posts. Plus, there is no check and balance against the council's power under PAS' Islamic State especially when they are not elected. In democracy, the ultimate power has to rest on the people and not a particular body, council, person or party.

On the matter of religion bashing, I'm glad that at least Arbibi is not equating freedom of speech to religion bashing. I think it is also worth mentioning that if Arbibi's reason for choosing a theocratic state over democracy is because of religion bashing, then Arbibi should consider Buddhism, since it is one of the very few religion that is not involved in religion bashing. But that is only my opinion.

As far as preventing corporations from lobbying government, a democratic system is entirely capable of doing it, since ultimately the politicians in a democratic system still require votes from the people and not corporations. The only other requirement is the will of the educated population, hopefully this will mean all people.