Congratulations, Mr Lim Kit Siang for your victorious return to Parliament together with your deputy Mr Karpal Singh. Congratulations on your party's performance. But you have to be realistic that it is only a minor improvement on your pre-election standing. Nonetheless it is an achievement that will keep your party alive for another five years.

You also need to understand that you are on probation. Your past association with PAS and Keadilan has deeply troubled your supporters, but they have decided to give you a second chance. Yes, they need you just as you need them, though not as much as you do them. You would be aware that their support is not without conditions, as you realised painfully in 1999. You would agree that it's no fun being outside Parliament. How could you serve the public then?

Your supporters now view with great alarm your invitation to Keadilan for a merger with the DAP, as they had with your previous association with PAS. You seem not to have read very much into the people's rejection of Keadilan for its association with PAS. In Keadilan's case, the association had been far too intimate, between that of a PAS master and a Keadilan servant. That closeness is too strong and too recent for we voters to either forget or forgive Keadilan.

I wrote in a letter some weeks ago, appealing to Keadilan to reject PAS as its ally before the election, advising that it could suffer collateral damage as a result of PAS' frightening hardline, Islamist agenda. But one could obtain the feeling that Keadilan has been, and still is totally unrepentant, of its alliance with PAS. The rest, as one would say, is very recent history.

Mr Lim, you must take the feelings of your supporters and their utter dislike of PAS and Keadilan into very careful account if you still want to retain their loyalty. Remember what I said about you and the DAP being on probation.

The DAP's vision is that of a 'Malaysian Malaysia', but apart from this vision, what is your party's selected campaign aim for the next election? To put it bluntly, your supporters have been, and still are, concerned with your obsession on denying the BN its two-thirds majority in Parliament. They perceived that it had been due to this unrealistic obsession that you had foolishly teamed up with PAS and Keadilan to form the Barisan Alternatif.

East is East and West is West. A secular DAP should never mix with a hardline theocratic party like PAS. The value of the BA has been useless and made worse for the DAP by PAS' intransigent stand for its own divisive agenda. PAS was not prepared to take on board the concerns of a multi-racial, multi-religious Malaysian society, and with its ruthless, arrogant attitude, was hardly worthy of being a true DAP partner.

PAS had been only using the DAP for its own benefit. You had a lose-lose situation. Fortunate it has been for the DAP that you managed to wake up just in time for the general election. Look at what has been the election outcome for Keadilan, in its alliance with PAS. That could have been the fate of the DAP.

Keadilan is now too tainted in many ways - firstly, through its unrepentant relationship with PAS and secondly, through the existence of many Umno-putras in its midst who still harbour Umno ideology. Do not be surprised if (or rather, when) some of them switch back to Umno. Should you ally the DAP with such people?

If you insist on rekindling the disastrous and shameful BA association, then I would with a very heavy heart predict the loss of support from your now very cautious and discriminating supporters (as you had experienced in 1999.) Don't take their loyalty for granted. Please keep well clear of Keadilan.

This is, of course, different from attracting a good man like Dr Syed Husin Ali and his PRM people to come over to the DAP. Consider also the good people of PSM. Further, do consider reconciliation with the MDP and their return to the DAP.

Be realistic in your campaign objectives and take small bites rather than obsessively big ones, and chew very carefully. This way, you are less likely to choke as you did in 1999. Make your objectives modest and achievable by the DAP itself. The DAP fights best when it fights alone on its own ideology.

Perhaps start off with the aim of winning in the next general election 25 to 30 parliamentary seats, of which five to eight shall be from constituencies that each have 40 percent Malay voters. Similarly, work out something equally modest for the state seats. The DAP must be visibly involved with the Malays, to highlight its multi-ethnic character.

The DAP must also modify its traditional reliance on only Chinese-majority constituencies. The Rocket has to be a symbol of trust for the Malay, Iban, Kadazan, Murut, Eurasian (etc.) Malaysians, and not only for Indian and Chinese Malaysians.

Your supporters know the DAP is multiracial, but most Malay voters don't. The DAP needs to work towards this in the next five years. Explain to them with care and clarity what is a 'Malaysian Malaysia', and whether it will impact on their 'privileges' as Malays.

Give good and sincere reasons why they should support you, but be realistic and not talk down to them on abstract issues (e.g. that two-thirds majority obsession). They need to understand the DAP vision and why it will be good for them in real terms. They need to know that the DAP will work for them.

The DAP must expose more prominently and regularly candidates like Zulkifli Mohd Noor (its Bukit Bendera parliamentary seat candidate.) Don't present him and other Malay candidates to the electorate on the eve of an election. Don't hog the public limelight for yourself and Karpal Singh.

Now is the time to present to the Malaysian public with your next generation of leaders and candidates. Time and tide wait for no one, including the DAP. Five years will pass very swiftly.

Bukit Bendera had been a DAP stronghold, and there is still much sympathy and goodwill for your party. You did the right thing to nominate a Malay candidate in a (supposedly) winnable seat.

However, you forgot one rather significant factor. You can't parachute someone fairly unknown onto voters to compete against an incumbent who has worked towards consolidating his position in the local community over the last five years.

In other words, while the people of Bukit Bendera do like the DAP, don't take their support for the Rocket for granted. And don't think the BN members are stupid too. Some of them are real hard workers, so do treat your opponents with some respect.

I would like to quote a poem by Julia A F Carney as a motivating reminder to the DAP in its steady but gradual drive towards a democratic Malaysia.

Little drops of water
Little grains of sand
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.

Slow and steady wins the race. The DAP will get to the pleasant democratic land if it holds true to its cause, if it stops being unrealistically obsessed about breaking the BN's two-thirds hold, and if it selects and maintains the correct aim, an aim that should be fairly modest and cater for the strategic growth and strength of the DAP.

Perhaps you and Karpal Singh may not personally enjoy or even see this ultimate achievement, but you will know that you two would have laid down solid foundations for a robustly democratic Malaysia.