Every time there is a call for former opposition leader Lim Kit Siang to quit or to make amends, there is bound to be a group of blind loyalists coming out to deify Lim as if their leader is entirely faultless or blameless. The script has always been the same: Kit Siang is perfect and great, all others have "ulterior motive" and "secret agenda". Their responses seem to be rigidly programmed. Their voices are lifeless and robotic.

Someimes one wonders why the intelligent and smart Lim Kit Siang likes to keep this type of robots around him. What type of intellectual stimulation could he possibly get from them? Is it because he is so lacking in true intellectual capacity and moral authority that he keeps this type of robots around him as a protective shield? Or because only by keeping them, it accentuates his greatness and relative intellect?

If this is true, this is a sure way for DAP's eventual self-destruction or implosion because of the changing political environment. It is no longer the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s where working class Chinese just voted for the Rocket and name of Lim Kit Siang. New voters, while angry with Barisan Nasional, still need to vote for someone in the opposition who are intellectually and socially more presentable than the rigid robots.

Perhaps this is exactly the reason why the young Chinese, both national- and Chinese-educated, find Keadilan more attractive and more democratic. Keadilan uses a softer approach in dealing with friendly criticisms even from outsiders. It is less authoritarian and intellectually less insulting. Sure, there are disagreements in all organisations but the way one manages it makes a crucial difference.

To me, DAP is more and more like Umno, and its old leaders like Kit Siang, Karpal Singh and Dr Chen Man Hin are all like Dr Mahathir. Teng Chang Khim is simply the DAP version of Anwar Ibrahim. Both Umno and DAP will certainly be swept into the dustbin of history if they do not abandon the authoritarian and robotic cultures.