Abu Mubarak in his letter Ear squats: Look at Umno before judging PAS missed the point about my criticisms of PAS. First, I agree with Abu Mubarak that by going after the whistle-blowers, Umno is once again trampling on our democratic right to freedom of speech and information, especially our right to dissent from official policies and to expose official misdeeds.

Apart from rejecting PAS, I also condemned Umno in my letter, albeit indirectly. The crux of my argument was - what would happen to our (already minimal) ability to hold our government in check, if PAS or any other government which rules in the name of God, is allowed to be in power.

This is regardless of what religion the party represents, be it Christian, Hindu or Buddhist. It is also regardless of whether these politicians are 'good people'. Therefore, what I say here has nothing to do with 'Islamophobia'. Instead, it is about what effective remedies can the people have, when our government does something wrong. Only the naive will believe that the people have no need for such remedies, because in the PAS' Utopia, everybody is an angel.

In an ideal democracy, the people can criticise the government publicly, hold peaceful demonstrations, ridicule government officials who are incompetent or simply stupid and organise mass civil and political movements to replace the entire government or particular officials. Umno has been trampling on these rights, but quietly, they realise that their actions are shameless, and they know that they cannot continue repressing such rights much longer.

However, when another government claims that it is governing 100% according to God's teachings and laws, then, by definition, whoever opposes anything that government does can be easily regarded as anti-religion and anti-God and be suppressed accordingly. In Islam, the consequence of speaking out against God's teachings is blasphemy or apostasy, and you could be put to death unless you 'repent'.

In fact, PAS politicians - not yet in power - have already been calling Umno politicians 'kafir' (non-believers) for many years, and curse them that they will go to Hell. If they can do this to fellow Muslims, imagine what they could do to the non-Muslims. PAS' aim is to gain absolute power, while leaving no remedy for us to check them from being corrupted absolutely.

Before they come into power, all politicians want you to believe that they are good men. Once they have guns in their hands after coming into power, they will have all the tools to prevent you from saying that they are not good men after all.

It is time that Malaysian grow out of the age of political innocence. You can never trust politicians by giving them blank cheques with no means of withholding payment. We should learn not to surrender out destiny on the basis of our faith in the perceived morality of the rulers, but to depend on transparent and democratic institutions instead.

That is the radical difference between constitutional democracy and the rule of law on one hand, and feudal and religious systems of government on the other.