Ladies and gentlemen, let us present the 2004 general elections! We have had almost a dozen general elections, and we are yet to have a different outcome.

This article, for those who make up the liberal and urbane population (LUP), asks one thing of its readers: to make their own deliberation before they vote, and let their conscience be their guide. Conscience, not guilt. Conscience, not tradition. Conscience, not fear, and never fear.

The first step is to identify the influence of the LUP voter. There are approximately 47 pure urban seats (peninsular only). Places where LUP members are rife and in some places form the majority. However with more than 200 parliamentary seats, LUP voters alone cannot change the government of Malaysia, for now.

The good news is that there are more than 60 other seats that will eventually become urban majority seats. The tide is firmly on the side of the critical population, and two general elections from now, almost all Malaysian seats would have a substantial population of LUP voters, which would make some in Putrajaya petrified of the future.

With razor-thin majorities expected in many of these places, since LUP voters are policy and honest debate influenced, the seats will change hands.

Now for the hard question: why rock the boat? Are we not all happy with life in Malaysia as it stands? The alternate realities? We are bound to be bundled out of human rights by PAS and kept in a labyrinth of vacuous ideology by DAP. A newly revamped Keadilan is still looking for an ideology that extends beyond Anwar. Is Barisan the only choice?

It is true that parties outside government, based on their own policy advocacy, lack character because of populism or pandering to their base support?

Yet Barisan never had an ideology - it is just a collection of parties covering races and regions, with an assertion that they cover all the bases.

Two, is government change what voting is all about? Not exactly. It is about political expression also. The Borneo buffer will lead Barisan into government again, however the LUP vote can be a large and ominous sign of a future where patronage is not the only passport to power.

Since there are no official social weather stations, apparent media strangulation rather than regulation, absolute opposition to local government elections and absence of an independent judiciary, voting is the only valid tool of the LUP kind, other than writing on websites.

That already illustrates plainly the wrongs that the Barisan government has perpetrated. The inefficacy of the opposition parties is contributed to by Barisan. The political wall unfairly placed has forced these parties to develop siege mentality, and re-enact undemocratic conceptions into their parties too. People like DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang are happy to be big fishes in their little pond.

By getting enough non-Barisan members into Parliament will reinvigorate the institution. No more silly rubber-stamping from the cabinet.

The reason why updates on votes cast in Dewan Negara and Dewan Rakyat is lost upon Malaysian readers is that a fair number of us do not realise that the legislative forum has an active role or that its role is integral to us being a working democracy.

Barisan constantly tries to keep race issues more important than real issues of the day. LUP voters should refuse to be hoodwinked and must want to know their candidates. Candidates' ideas for the economy, on local elections, education and law have to be articulated, and then challenged by the LUP.

No one gets a free ride. And if there is only one pocket of LUP voters in your whole parliamentary seat, give every candidate a reminder that simpleton promises and thinly-veiled threats will not win your vote. A not-so-gentle reminder to the winner and losers that come next elections, there will be more pockets like yours, with demands growing, not relenting.

I'm not claiming that race is not an issue anymore in Malaysia, however it is not the only issue for the country. Gender inequities are growing in importance, and so are urban renewal demands. The economy and specific details of policy about it will matter to the LUP voter.

For a Chinese female doctor working in a private suburban clinic in Subang Jaya, belonging to the high income bracket and divorced with two children, a whole plethora of concerns plague her political consideration, and the analysis cannot come down to her being Chinese and therefore completely synonymous with a Chinese male who has attended school till SPM, and works as a supervisor in a quarry in Johor.

The doctor's needs and wants are dictated by more than just race, as is for the supervisor. Lives of people are multifaceted, and therefore I am not ignoring one powerful facet but kindly indicating the other facets, which in sum overwhelm the race card.

It is amazing therefore, national media companies break constituencies across this great nation of ours down to only race. It insults the intelligence of any member of LUP, and their silence due the absence of a sensible platform to support should not be deciphered as submission.

Why not argue the relative affects of the new condos in Kelana Jaya and how they would affect this new parliamentary seat? That there would be more couples without children, or that there are substantial Catholic homes in that area? And how about the Astro divide - Star TV news viewer and not?

Here are some real issues:

The brain drain. It is going amok. We do not live in Vietnam War days of political uncertainty. America and the free world openly flag for our finest, and those in office are indifferent to this predicament.

Economic plans to deal with increased liberalisation processes. Banks will shed their fat, and corporations will have to be allowed to fail without bailouts from the public purse. Jobs must be lost, and companies must fall to renew the economy.

Local councils that need to be more responsive and accountable to the local population, and not political appointees out to please their sponsor and seeking income elsewhere. It is only logical that the administration of local councils are democratised to increase participation and representative government.

An education system that is below par. The nation has had a growing population for some time, therefore those in schools today are double those in school 20 years ago. When you couple that with lower expenditure for primary education system with focus only on political concessions, and lower public funding and taxation rates slipping, we should be asking the same questions as American taxpayers are: "How do we get education right?" The slice of pie is smaller, and therefore the spending has to be tighter, and perhaps money in state and even district education units would be better than in the central ministry monolith. The increase of public universities does barely cover the lacklustre education and minimal research produce apparent in these new and old public universities. The situation is dire and politicking every appointment, idea and plan is the dead knell for our public education facilities.

A failing integration process. Our kindergartens are more polarised than ever before. Caution rather than quality is the reason why parents are increasing the admission of their children in religious and vernacular schools. If the universities are not bold to reintroduce race-mixed hostel rooms, what could three months in camp do? And even if it, did how long before the lessons learnt erode when the students go to their polarised university campuses?

Religious freedom . Space for worship for the minorities is becoming a joke. No one is asking for federal funding, just permission for people to build places of worship on private land from private funding. People like Jamil Spatafore Abdullah (' Islamisation: This is, after all, a democracy ') are being unfair. Bible-belt capitals like New Orleans for example, with a population of 1.3 million have four Muslim centres and synagogues each. A real democracy looks at minority issues with even greater zeal.

Crime is growing nationwide. There are a litany of reasons for its rise, and programmes to deal with structurally unemployed groups like estate workers, disseminating basic safety procedure and modernising the police force will help. More brain and less brawn to resolve crimes of a different time and pedigree.

This is not to say that the BN government has failed in all these areas, or to say an alternate government will rectify any previous misgivings. Rather those issues and not simple communal divisiveness issues should be used to win Malaysian voters exclusively.

And even after the election, victors - if they have moral fortitude and possess a conscience - must shape a nation that offers participation to all citizens, transparency and pursue representative government fairly. This is not only to win the burgeoning LUP votes, but to ensure Malaysia as a nation stays relevant to its people and the world.