On Sunday, Malaysians will once again exercise their citizenship obligation by casting their votes. What sort of government do we want to lead the nation?

Pak Lah, as prime minister you have articulated honestly many of the ills that concern us. You have also recognised that behind these ills is the erosion of our trust in institutions such as the police, the civil service, the judiciary and other branches of the government. The truth is we have lost confidence in these institutions because we have lost our trust in the political process, especially the politics of government.

The foundation of these institutions have been undermined because the quality of our nation's political life has degenerated over the past two decades. When the then Lord President Salleh Abas can be tried by his subordinates, and sacked for complaining to the Yang Di Pertuan Agong about the actions of Dr Mahathir Mohamad's government, how distant are we from being a banana nation with kangaroo courts?

Or when Dr Mahathir stood silent when Mustapha Harun launched a political coup d'etat in Sabah when he lost the elections? It was prevented only when then deputy prime minister Musa Hitam stated that the election results must be respected.

Many Malaysians were angry over Anwar Ibrahim's humiliation because of the blatant injustice of the judicial process. But even more so because we saw the government's willingness to utterly destroy the people's already eroded trust in the police, the judiciary and the country's leadership for the sake of its own party political in-fighting.

Malaysian politics once more descended to the lowest level of banana nations, with the country's deputy leader physically beaten by its chief of police, and a prosecution and trial process that mocked the sense of citizenship of the neutral observer.

Are these wrongdoings or are they not, or is there a cynical in-between answer? Do they warrant repairing, or do we accept them as past and gone, as unfortunate distant memories? Do they embody a dangerous direction from which we must look back in order to turn back, in order to change to the right path?

March 21 is a watershed opportunity for Malaysians to elect a government that can bring peace and progress not only for the five years of its rule. The progress of our society and of our future generations rests on a leadership that can strengthen the institutional foundations of Malaysia as a nation.

Malaysia either takes the path to becoming a stronger and better society or, like many other nations, spiral surely down the path of degeneration. Your greatest service, Pak Lah, would be to rebuild and strengthen our nation's institutional foundations because you will one day, too, be only remembered as Malaysia's leader.

In pursuing crime and corruption, you have effectively promised that there would be no expiry date or statute of limitation. I am not active in politics in any way whatsoever, nor am I a supporter of Anwar Ibrahim. As a citizen, I petition you to appoint a royal commission to review Anwar Ibrahim's case in its entirety.

If this is done and whatever may be the commission's findings, I believe it will repair the people's confidence in Malaysia's future and the quality of our nation's political life, more than a thousand prosecution of corruption cases can ever achieve. If you see it fit to act on this before March 21, I believe the mandate that you will get will be with the true support of Malaysians.