Dear Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,

It is quite obvious former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, has saddled multiple obstacles on to you, preventing you from carrying out your day to day duties in running the country the way you see fit.

That being so, let us just remind everyone that you are currently the boss and all else is insignificant. Just to sidetrack a little, may I suggest 'Grouses of a 17 year old student' as essential reading in search of the truth on how inept our curriculum is at present. My warmest regards to the kid who penned the letter. You are an example to all your fellow students, your parents and country.

Back to Pak Lah and more pressing matters. The ongoing million dollar question on all minds is: who will helm the post of deputy prime minister? May I suggest a lame duck for the post. Remember now Mahathir once had Ghafar Baba. If tradition follows, the person nominated for the post would inevitably helm the top post one day. It is best that no decision be taken and the decision be left to internal Umno elections to sort out the post of deputy within party hierarchy.

Let's face it, put either Najib Razak or Muhyiddin Yassin in the post and you would in effect compromise your own position. Those two front runners have a war chest ready to take on all comers, in order to secure the coveted post. They will pretty much carry on with the ways of old in the same vein that the old man governed the country.

The public deserves better and I'm certain many of us are waiting with bated breath for changes to take place. With the mandate up for grabs shortly, there are many ways for you to garner popular public support to win the hearts of the people.

Promote a genuine interest in increasing the number of vernacular schools - that would make life easier for both MCA and MIC. Such a decision should not be seen as a political ploy but rather a poignant fact as both China and India provides a massive market for Malaysian products and services just as commerce today is increasingly borderless.

The ability to communicate in the same tongue with our counterparts is a plus factor while we can all fall back on the use of the English language to secure contract in the best traditions of international law governing trade and commerce. This may be wishful thinking, but the objectives of our founding fathers in promoting the use of one's mother tongue has already yielded positive outcomes if compared to the masses in say Thailand, Indonesia and the Phillippines.

While we are still at it, it would do no harm in taking an honest look into the present STPM/ matriculation stinker? It is high time the minister responsible be held accountable for the brouhaha.

Protest have fallen on deaf ears, with muted response from authorities. The bottom line being that this notion of meritocracy is a sham, and is hurting both bumiputras and non-bumiputras. Our best minds are left unexploited, their true potential never to be achieved, while the policy sows the seed of discontent among fellow students.

If the need for real intergration is to be achieved, this is one area that needs attention for it would be a waste of public fund conducting a national service program to promote such an ideal. Get real, take an honest look and not waiver from the truth. Present policies suppresses true potential, give bumiputera students a false sense of superiority as they are able to secure degrees with little effort but cannot ultimately find employment in the real world because many are ill-equipped.

In the long run, the country can ill afford to retrain grads as it is a waste of resources and lets not get into talk of opportunity cost just yet Pak Lah. With the thought of resource in mind, the people behind Bahagian Pengagihan Saham Bumiputera (bumiputra share allocation regulators) need to be booted out en masse and you decide, yes, Pak Lah you alone decide who gets what.

I trust in you just like many of us who give you our whole hearted support to do the right thing. Mahathir has abused the system and it is high time there be devise a more equitable way to achieve the true objectives of this giving. Mahathir made millionaires amongst his chosen ones who constantly plea poverty to get more while many in rural areas subsist on rice and bare neccesities to get through the day. My heart cries out for these common folks.

This 30 percent bumiputera equity should be held in trust for the true recipients and not the fat cats that Mahathir has turned into welfare monkeys, undeserving of their 'beemers' and 'benzs', their flashy do's, and Datukship. Who can forget the scandal of Rafidah and the MAS shares she assigned to her own family?

I guess many would question: why give when the first thing they do is sell! Mahathir acknowledged this fact, tongue in cheek. Deal with this in a just and equitable manner and there would be no necessity for a national unity programme.

Is this national service programme another way for Najib and co. to manipulate the figures for their own end? As it is, the purchased of arms of late have shown up figures that are way inflated in prices. Where was the Anti-Corruption Agency when a certain retired general was busy moving suitcase after suitcase of cash as a result of a tragedy that was man made and not an act of God? Criminal elements aplenty but no action rendered by our toothless ACA.

Pak Lah, you are in the driver's seat, you determine your own course and even in these early days, whatever your deeds and actions, you could do no worst than the old man. If only people could view the deeds of Mahathir objectively.

He only survived through the slanted work our mainstream press, control of the judiciary and police force. His legacy has yet to be written, while you are on course to move this country towards an uncharted future. He has left your hands full but with God's grace and able-minded help, may you show us the way toward a just, equitable and prosperous future that would benefit all that have been neglected.