I was posted to Terengganu 21 years ago and have been almost totally acculturated to the people. The countryside is naturally beautiful. In all probability, it is the last frontier for those who love fishing, diving; jungle tracking; hunting and hill climbing.

The aim of this article is to adumbrate with equitable care that most of the time the public is fed with lies and the perpetrators believe and live with their own lies. The question is how long will this facade last?

Terengganu was allegedly lost to the mullahs because they hideously proselytised by twisted Islam. Three days before the last general elections, almost everybody in this state knew that PAS would win by a small majority. The results were a blitzkrieg.

Thus, overnight the Terengganuans became asinine with gullibility. But for the last 25 years they had been perspicacious because they were with BN. Some of the main reasons for the loss were as follows:

Umno KL did not perceive the ground swell of resentment against the fossilised government of Wan Mohktar who drove their expensive vehicles in an ocean of poverty. They had the accouterments of a Western lifestyle without regrettably the concurrent requirement of accountability and transparency.

On the right side of the highway to Paka from Kemasik, there are beautiful and well-maintained houses with well groomed gardens and provided with gasification and electricity. The kampungs on the left have no proper sanitary system; sodden in squalor; are largely using well water and left with all the manifestations of poverty.

The most expensive 22-mile mini-highway ever built was from the Jabor Highway to Kampung Raja. This white elephant is slowly being eaten away by undergrowth from its shoulders. Among many other horror stories, Terengganu is the only state with a missing safari park. The ultimate is that the PAS government inherited RM700 million in debts.

Before the elections, Wan Mohktar and his wealthy election machinery were in sangfroid and smitten by hubris. They spilled the usual tactical beans: "We have provided you with progress and look how nice Kuala Terengganu is ... be grateful, vote Barisan and we give you more".

This facile ploy was used for two decades. It emboldens chagrin with the voters. The sweet and charitable people of Terengganu knew silat gayung and silap mata.

The best and the brightest that were employed in upstream and downstream activities in the petroleum industry provided some brainpower and expertise to PAS. The mullahs have very limited knowledge of computers and the science of movement and supply.

The ponderous PAS's election system was moved into top gear with such alacrity that in the last 100-meter dash BN was baffled. Petronas management executives were disillusioned with KL. During the meltdown of our economy, they had no increments and bonuses because Petronas had to bail out companies of you know whom.

Umno failed to examine and regulate disenfranchised Malays who could not get on the bandwagon of cronyism. And together with displaced Malay intellectuals, and in their sulkies, aided PAS to stir the frontier peasants to reject BN for a fair share of wealth.

PAS was also aided and abetted by the chief Umno mullah - Dr Hamid Othman. He lost his safe seat to the writer of SHIT but did not have the self-respect to face defeat like a gentleman. He accepted reappointment that was rather odd for somebody rejected in a democratic election.

Recently, when he was interviewed by a local paper for his achievements, he said that, "among other things, I have implemented the tabi'ah and the result was that many are wearing the tudung".

He, dumbfoundedly, is providing the cannon fodder for PAS's Taliban warriors. In a way he has acted treasonably to our Constitution. Mahathir should have left him to pasture and replaced him with Dr Ismail Ibrahim of IKIM who seems to see the wood for trees more clearly.

PAS did not defeat BN because it had a heaven and hell agenda. It was given to the turbaned warriors on a silver platter.

ROBITA T. ABDULLAH is a freelance writer based in Terengganu.