I refer to the Malaysakini report Anwar slammed over 'back door' bid for Putrajaya.

Ever heard of the ‘AAL’? Well, it is not an official organisation but it might be a good idea to set it up - the ‘Anti-Anwar Losers’.

There is a little group of unique malcontents that is becoming a feature of the political scene - ex-PKR ‘prominentos’ who are now out of the party, and mightily upset with Anwar Ibrahim. They share another common trait - all of them, despite their best efforts, remain feather-weight, more comic relief than anything else.

There's Ezam. All he wants for Hari Raya is to be taken seriously by somebody. Anybody.

There's Nallakaruppan, who wants to ride the Makkal Sakthi gravy train. Problem is, he doesn't even know which station the train is at, or how to buy the ticket.

Perhaps the most fascinating is Dr Chandra Muzaffar, former PKR vice-president and another Anwar-hater. Muzaffar first ‘burst’ on the scene in the 1980s as the founder (or was he co-founder?) of Aliran.

He deserves credit for speaking out against government policies long before the reformasi days of the late 1990s and at a time when doing so was considered a one-way ticket to ISA purgatory.

Naturally, following the dawn of reformasi, he became involved in Keadilan, which started out as a collection of government critics. He rose as far as vice-president before leaving the party for whatever reason.

Since then, Muzaffar has been busy destroying whatever credibility he still had from his Aliran days. His opinions on local politics are completely dominated by his antagonism towards Anwar, which means he is totally out of touch with what is happening in the country.

First things first. Is Muzaffar a politician, a social activist or a scientist? If you ask him, he would probably say, ‘All of the above.’ A more accurate description might be, ‘Whichever designation furthers my purpose.’

Last week, in a widely-reported diatribe, he slammed Anwar's efforts to ‘topple’ the BN government as ‘unethical’, ‘undemocratic’ and a whole lot of other things. He says such actions are unprecedented and do not respect the wishes of the voters. And his persistent pitch to close the sale? The same old Umno argument that ‘all Anwar wants to do is become prime minister.’

Let's talk about ethics. If Muzaffar is really interested in championing ethics, he could make a career for five lifetimes by going after all the unethical stuff that the Barisan Nasional government has done for 50 years and continues to do until this day. In fact, it is so blatant, so obvious that even trying to outline it would require encyclopedia-sized volumes.

However, let's stick to the points he brought up. There have been widespread, though admittedly unproven, allegations that the BN rigged a number of electoral contests on March 8, and if this rigging hadn't occurred, they would have lost power.

Even if the rigging is unproven, there is no doubt that threats, intimidation and the massive misuse of government resources have repeatedly been employed by the BN to win elections. Where are Muzaffar's protests over that? Where is the whining about ‘ethics’ there? Does he consider BN ‘victories’ democratically valid in the face of these practices?

More importantly, is Muzaffar more concerned about the oh-so-tender ethics of textbook parliamentary democracy than the fact that people continue to be detained indefinitely without trial solely for opposing this government?

That whole groups of people continue to be denied their place in the Malaysian sun while the elites line their pockets? How could a so-called ‘social scientist’ be so wilfully blind to the desperation Malaysians have exhibited for change just to satiate his Anwar-hatred?

Heck, where is Muzaffar's outrage over the legally dishonest attempt to ‘fix’ Anwar with the latest sodomy charge?

Even when he talks about ‘democracy’, Muzaffar is very selective in his views. Votes of no-confidence in the government are not that uncommon a feature in parliamentary democracies around the world, and MPs voting against their own parties in such votes are also not uncommon.

It happened in India just a few weeks ago when the government there survived just such a vote over the US-India nuclear-energy pact.

At the end of the day, the prerogative is still with the government of the day to call for fresh elections if it loses such a vote, and voters can have the final say on the matter. Besides, if 30 or so government MPs come out openly against the government, what they will be saying in effect is, ‘We no longer want to be in this government.’

Would it be ethical then to force them to continue supporting something they really don't want to?

As for that tired old argument that ‘all Anwar wants to do is become prime minister’, it seems like a strange route for Anwar to take to get to that office. Instead of just playing along luxuriously in the lap of power and privilege as deputy prime minister under Dr Mahathir Mohamad and then moving into the office at the right time, Anwar chose to get thrown out of government, be beaten within an inch of death and spend six years in jail!

Mana ada logik, Dr Muzaffar?