When the Malays voted against the Umno–led BN government on Mar 8, the intention was to send the present leaders a warning signal and get them to sort out their act. The message to the government was: stop treating Malaysia like your own personal playground, stop playing the old racial game of divide and conquer, start thinking seriously about how to unite all Malaysians, start governing with more transparency, strengthen our institutions, stamp out corruption, uphold democracy and rule of law, respect individual rights, and foster the spirit of enterprise and competitiveness.

Instead the Umno-led BN government has steadfastly ignored all these messages, probably due a combination of the following: uninspired and weak leadership riddled with greed, corruption and self-interest at the working levels, an arrogant ‘tidak apa’ attitude, and pure foolishness. As a result we stand on the brink of history: the takeover of the government by an opposition pact.

As such, the time has come for those Malays who voted for the Opposition to face the consequences of their actions. What was meant to be a warning to the present government to “buck up and clean up your act, or else we will let the opposition take over” is now turning into reality. In all honesty, most liberal Malays who did so probably did not expect it to go this way.

The fear now amongst all Malays is that if it does go to the opposition, there is no guarantee that the Malay position will be maintained, that it will be the end of the Malays and we will go back to being slaves in our own country.

So people like Ahmad Ismail are playing to this fear, arguing that the Malays must not allow this to happen and unite to support the present Umno-led government to maintain the status quo.

My answer to this is simple: There is nothing to fear by voting according to your conscience. If indeed the opposition takes over and even if one day we are led by a non-Malay PM, I am confident from events post-March 8, that we have matured enough as a society to rise above our racial prejudices to support whoever is the best Malaysian to lead us and run the country in the fairest and most equitable manner.

To the Malays, the racial fears are unfounded as the constitutional safeguards are still there, Islam will still be our national religion, Malay our national language, our Malay constitutional monarchy will still be there, our culture will still command its rightful position, Malay quotas in administration and education will still be in place.

To the non-Malays, please recognise that these constitutional safeguards were put in place not to create an unfair advantage forever to the Malays, but to ensure an equitable formula going forward which our founding fathers in their wisdom have agreed upon.

To all Malaysians, please respect these safeguards as they will ensure that democracy and rule of law will always be upheld in Malaysia, which will create a healthy and united Malaysian society that will be able to compete in the 21st century. This is our best argument against the ugly specter of extremism and racial politics.