I disagree that MPs should vote unfettered according to their conscience. If so, they may as well be independents. Managing an organisation needs control - similar as you would in a jetplane in flight. You can't just have everyone doing their own thing while the plane is travelling to its destination at 30,000 feet above sea level.

Voting by conscience only applies to certain issues which cut across all lines irregardless of race and religion, eg, moral issues like abortion or streaming in education and so forth. From that aspect, there is no difference whether you are in opposition or not. I thus understand the prime minister's position against free-for-all conscience votes. It makes utterly no sense to have party politics without any gel or glue.

And if the Financial Times thinks that Abdullah Ahamd Badawi is having trouble controlling Umno due to this issue, I think they should be a bit cautious about what they write. Malaysia is not yet in the same developed stage as the UK in terms of parliamentary democracy.

Abdullah is a man of courage and good intentions, interested in the greater good of the majority and trying to balance many conflicting demands cutting across all lines. It will be interesting if at the end, he can leave a legacy of making a landmark decision which changed the political landscape - the breaking up of the monolithic Umno into a two-party system comprising social democrats and conservatives.

Looking at the situation in a developing country, I am all for social democrats which I tend to think the PM and his group of good men (and women) plus many Malays and non-Malays are. We need a check against the neo-conservatives or republicans, which the ex-PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his cohorts of power hungry and materialistic Malays and non-Malays were.

There is still hope yet for Malaysia. Just don't read too much of the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal .