I am completely baffled by DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang's poser as to which Islamic state was more threatening — Umno's or PAS'? He said Umno's Islamic state was of greater concern as the ruling party could "take just two or three steps and implement it" as compared with PAS' which may take 10 years to come to power and 100 steps to realise it.

So is it DAP's strategy to immediately end Umno's reign by pitching its weight behind its rival, PAS, in the process to shorten the 100 steps in 10 years? Lim has forgotten that even as he spoke, PAS Terengganu state was taking steps to immediately implement hudud (Islamic penal code).

While the leaflets distributed were not seditious, they are duplicitous: No to 911 and 929 and yes to 1957? Is PAS' Islamic state synonymous with 911 (associated with terrorist attacks)? If yes, why is DAP entering into an electoral pact with PAS?

If no, does this not suggest that DAP's position in the leaflets opposes Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's Islamic state (929) but not the PAS' Islamic state though publicly he said that they were both false choices?

Let's examine further the positions of other politicians as gleaned from current news reports. MCA's president Dr Ling Liong Sik has become a new feminist champion alongside Wanita Keadilan to oppose Terengganu's hudud move on grounds only that it is discriminatory of women.

Keadilan Youth submitted a memorandum to the Vatican to lobby for the freeing of Anwar Ibrahim and others even if it sullies the historicity of the Pope-Mahathir meet. Umno's politicians are busy championing "meritocracy of mediocrity" and debating the 10 percent quota for non-bumiputra students at Mara Junior Science Colleges, etc.

I have lived long and travelled far enough to know that this homeland of ours blessed in many ways is being thoroughly destroyed by our politicians (on both sides), and the effects will be seen within the next decade.

They engage in double-talk and double-think, if not downright nonsense. Public interest and democracy are empty words on their slogans. Power using the race and religion platform is the real underlying motive. Political power comes not only from ego aggrandisement and respectability, but personal riches from dispensing patronage.

Far from educating common folk on good values, politicians keep on evoking racial and religious sentiments to garner their support and in the process, make common folks more bigoted in terms of race and religion, thus making national integration even more difficult.

I have got nothing but contempt for our politicians who look down on the rakyat's intellect and manipulate our racial and religious sentiments for their selfish and personal need to get popular support.