I concur with Farish Noor's observation in his recent letter that the current state of our national politics is dominated by both religious and communal sectarianism. Although this is not a new phenomena but I would argue that it would or has already started to erode the influence of political legitimacy in governing the country.

While the Hegelian communitarianism is at work, we have to question whether the claims made by politicians that their views represent the voices of the communities or, to quote Farish, their "natural political constituencies" are even legitimate.

For example, leaders who want to justify their long overdue seat-warming at the top would claim that the communities want them to stay on. But where are referendums to support such claims?

Or politicians who seek to be moral spokesmen of the communities would interpret which religious standards are politically correct and then gladly assume these standards are universal. Do they even pause to think that there is plurality in the individual experience and relationship with their god?

In turn, some politicians lack moral courage to subject their actions to scrutiny and critique by the communities, when such check and balance mechanism ought to come hand-in-hand with representation.

This is at best clumsy communitarianism. Even if it calls for moral value to be credited to particularistic political collectivities and posits that only through the state can individuals realise freedom and enjoy an ethical life, in our case there is clearly lack of mutually agreed principles on which our society's basic institutions and policies are relied upon.

There is no co-operative scheme for mutual advantage at community level. But only co-operative schemes which politicians and political parties deem necessary to sustain power-sharing or balance of power and to protect their interests.

Both sides of the divide, the ruling coalition and their alternative nemesis, are pursuing a "totalising project" which is the pursuit of a pure and homogenous political identity - although their mode seems to converge - tied to ethnicity and (or) religion.

The mix looks more deadly than a Molotov cocktail. Hence, I would argue that there is a need for the decentralisation of moral viewpoints, away from politicians and the political realm which is at the core of the state.

Here, I support Farish's call for a widening of the circle of those who have rights to participate in socio-political dialogue that includes discussions on religious and non-religious norms affecting them, which is now selfishly guarded by mullahs, mullah wannabes or political opportunists dressed up as secular defenders.

Like many people, I feel uncomfortable to have a politician who might also be a triad sympathiser claiming to speak for or represent my interest just because I happen to belong to his imagined political constituency. Moreover, the rights of participation in the dialogue would also enlarge the sphere of freedom and equality.

Furthermore, our political realm has not only demonstrated a lack of imagination and a dearth of innovative ideas but has also failed to reduce the moral deficits created by exclusions built by patriarchy, capitalism, and the state system. The distortions in these structures are manifested and condoned through the policies, actions and limited ideologies of the political actors.

For instance, poor economic analyses that continue to ascribe defections of income distribution in communal terms. Those prescribing race-based affirmative action are likely to miss the point of correcting the inequality and bridging the income gap between the richest and the poorest.

An upcoming young politician who is already a junior minister, in suggesting that the presumably richer Chinese community should assist the poorer Malay community to get richer, even had to remind the former of the May 13, 1969 peril of not doing so. With this we do not need any more examples of political bankruptcy.

However, unlike Farish, I am less utopian about believing that we could envisage a political transition to a more individual centric model from where we are now. Structural realists would gleefully point to the current political system and argue that it would not be possible for political actors to behave differently from what is conditioned and required by the system.

Hence, a political actor would find obstacles through the rigidity of the system to shift its communal or religious centric or elitist political domain to a more inclusionary and democratic form. Any failure to comply may even result in political extinction.

Reality aside, I would however argue that any failure to change the current system would result in further erosion of political legitimacy of political actors, even if they appear victorious through the electoral process.

The system is not given but constructed collectively by the actors in it. It can be reconstructed through fervent initiatives to bring greater freedom and progress to the communities they represent. Political actors and their advisors ignore the voices of the people at their own peril and downfall.