One positive aspect I noticed in the intense campaigning of the BA in the recently-concluded Lunas by-election was that all their leaders, irrespective of which component parties they represent, spoke on the need for a new era of Malaysian politics that would go beyond the present entrenched communalism.

Thus from PAS president Fadzil Noor and Keadilan deputy president Dr Chandra Muzaffar to DAP chairman Lim Kit Siang and PRM president Dr Syed Husin Ali, not to mention other lower-ranking leaders from all the BA components, the bottom line in their speeches to mixed crowds of Malays, Chinese and Indians was the same: The BA would fight for the rights of all Malaysians and not just those of anyone particular community.

It would be fair to suggest that, at least in the Lunas by-election, the BA leaders have regarded communalism more of a symptom of Malaysia's present political problems and less as their cause.

Hence their sensitivity to ethnic concerns appears to be within the broad framework of their fight for the rights of all communities. This involves restoring the legitimate rights of aggrieved communities.

As such, we can understand why large numbers of Malays, many of them sporting skull caps, at BA ceramah could accept the speeches of non-Malay BA leaders from Keadilan and DAP on the injustices of the BN, particularly Umno towards the Chinese, especially with regard to the Vision School issue.

Speaking in Bahasa, the language in which practically all BA speeches were made, the BA Chinese adopted the right approach in dealing with a sensitive matter by requesting for permission to speak in Mandarin so that the message could be better understood by the Chinese section of the mixed audience.

It was heartening to see many Malays not objecting, and applauding Chinese educationist Loo Ting Yee when he spoke on the Vision Schools issue in Mandarin, even though practically all the Malays in the audience could not understand the language.

This was not the only occasion when the communal barrier was breached. When Kelantan MB Nik Aziz visited Lunas on the Nov 25 and spoke before a mixed crowd of Chinese and Malays at a site where Chinese eating stalls are located, he was given a standing ovation by the Chinese crowd there.

It was a befitting atmosphere for Nik Aziz to correct whatever misgivings the Chinese may have of an Islamic state. They heard the explanations and clarifications from the horse's mouth, clarifications which the pro-establishment local mainstream media either blacked out or downplayed.

Another notable occasion was on polling day itself, Nov 29, outside several polling stations in Lunas where vociferous crowds of Malays from the BA and BN "confronted" each other on both sides of the approach road leading to the polling station, in their last-minute attempts to persuade voters to cast their votes for their respective parties.

Umno's loud chants that the party was a defender of the rights of the Malays was countered with equal vehemence by Keadilan/PAS supporters.

They pointed out that when a Malay woman was raped by an Umno politician, it was none other than DAP leader Lim Guan Eng who intervened to restore the honour of the woman, not Umno politicians, and Lim had to pay a heavy price for it.

The above instances in the campaigning at the Lunas by-election show that the communal structure of politics with the clearly-etched racial divide which is the BN's strength, can be breached by adopting the right strategy of Malay/Chinese cooperation.

Both groups in the BA managed to put their message across to the respective sections of their audience, showing that the injustices perpetrated by the BN can be rectified through a broad approach encompassing the legitimate rights of all Malaysians which the BA is striving for.

The above instances also show the helplessness of the MIC in championing the BN model of communal politics. The MIC in fact succeeded in its agenda of cornering the overwhelming majority (at least 80 percent) of the popular Indian vote in Lunas.

But as Indians comprise only 19 percent of the multi-racial Lunas electorate, MIC's efforts came to nought, bringing much despair to the party, especially the grassroots workers who had tirelessly slogged to canvass for Indian votes in the estates like Victoria and Henrietta where Indians predominate.

The MIC which had "boasted" of its 100 percent victory in both parliamentary and state seats contests in both the 1995 and 1995 general elections, must now face up to the stark reality that unless Umno and MCA perform well, MIC can even fire its best salvo but victory is still uncertain.

Until Indians form a majority in any constituency in Malaysia - which they never will - the MIC's faith in communal politics, unlike Umno's and to some extent the MCA's, will continue to remain hollow.

For those who champion the cause of multi-racial politics in Malaysia, the BA victory in the Lunas by-election is still a long way off in reflecting any effective gain made against the entrenched nature of communal politics.

The initial step in the right direction may have been taken on Nov 29, but more by-elections and the next general elections of 2004 are needed to see if the same strategy adopted by the BA can work, not to mention that the strategy will have to be adapted to suit changing conditions in different places.

It will take more BA victories in coming by-elections, and finally a general election, for results to show. BA components would have to cooperate very much in the same way as the Malay, Chinese and Indian members of a then genuinely multi-racial Gerakan did in 1969, to defeat the communal Alliance of Umno/MCA and MIC in Penang.

Only then can the setbacks initiated by communal politics, represented by Onn Jaafar's Independence of Malaya Party (IMP) at the hands of the communal Umno/MCA Alliance in the 1951 Kuala Lumpur municipal elections, be reversed, and the course for multi-racial politics in the country be firmly charted.