Umno and PAS displayed mature political diplomacy to help Kelantan escape another political crisis. This win-win settlement qualifies those involved to be the future stars of our political arena.

The political compromise between Umno and PAS to settle the general election disputes is an encouraging development in the Malaysia political landscape.

Before both parties reached the agreement, the PAS-led Kelantan state government was prepared for the worst - dissolving the state assembly to seek a fresh mandate from the people if the court was to rule in favour of the Barisan Nasional petitions.

On the other hand, Barisan Nasional, which won back many strategic seats in Kelantan, may also face an uphill battle to retain those seats they won in the March 21 general election if new elections were called.

It will be encouraging if we could now see the Kelantan BN leadership close ranks with its PAS counterpart to help the people. Kelantan Umno leaders need to forget about the revenge and their narrow-minded political paradigms.

They will need more wisdom, tolerance and political maturity to offer themselves as viable leaders to the people.

Should there have been another snap Kelantan state election, BN may not have won as many seats as it did during the last general election and, in fact, all indications are that PAS would have retained the state with even more seats.

But if PAS were to win big, BN would have imposed more domestic economic sanction to punish the people.

And if BN managed to win Kelantan, their political rent-seekers who had invested would then expect a higher return on their investments and for this, more Kelantanese resources would be exploited.

Regardless of which political party wins a Kelantan snap state election, the Kelantan people will be the losers. But with the agreement not to pursue the elections petitions, the Kelantanese have emerged as the winners.