I agree with Michael's views in What's driving Muslims into PAS' fold .

The many misgivings of our judiciary system coupled with strict draconian laws like the Internal Security Act is shifting popular Malay support away from Umno and towards PAS.

Another reason, omitted by Michael, is equally important — that is poverty in rural Malay areas. During Barisan Nasional's 45-year rule, there has been a tendency to concentrate growth in the West Coast of the peninsular especially in the southern region.

Kelantan is the most neglected state to the extent that whatever few facilities it has — railway lines for example — are all leftovers from the colonial era.

Unless a Malay is in the mainstream of life in towns like Kuala Lumpur or Johor Baru, he is most probably poor. On top of that, is the lack of federal government assistance to rural kampung folks.

The RTM news bulletin regularly airs sad stories of widows living in Kelantan who have as many as 10 children living in abject poverty but it tries to attribute such poverty to PAS.

However, what RTM hides is the fact that under the federal government's social welfare programme, each hardcore poor family in Malaysia only receives a paltry sum of less than RM100 a month per family.

Assuming that there are about 50,000 families in the whole of Malaysia entitled to welfare, thus the federal government expenditure only amounts to approximately RM60 million per annum.

This pales in comparison to the RM500 million allocated for Formula 1 racing or the billions of ringgit that the federal government spends in bailing out companies that only benefits a handful of people. If the Barisan Nasional continues with its practice of cronyism and nepotism, Umno's popularity will eventually dwindle to near nothing.