In reply to Ah Chong's letter Change of government not impossible, indeed, there can be a democratic change of government in Malaysia if the majority of the people vote for the opposition but as I have said here before, the opposition must have a convincing alternative programme encompassing viable economic, educational, housing, medical, racial and other policies which matter most to the majority of the population.

Concepts like democracy, press freedom, human rights, transparency, etc are not long-standing traditions among Far East Asians, who've recently emerged from feudal and colonial rule'

People who've been very poor and have just emerged from poverty, naturally place economic opportunity and a chance for a better life as top priorities, while issues like democracy, human rights, press freedom and transparency rank lower down on their list.

While things are never static or cast in stone and the priorities of the younger generation could well be different, the above statement still looks like a majority trend for now.

The key formula used by parties in this region to retain power continuously for many years is that they firstly pick a mass constituency which will support them. Then they do their best to please this group and to retain their votes to remain in power, while ignoring what dissident or disaffected groups within society may think or feel.

Thus they use - or perhaps abuse - the democratic process to remain in power but it can't be said they are undemocratic, since democracy, after all, is the choice of the majority. But democracy can be tyrannical without checks and balances like constitutional protections, bills of rights, etc to protect the rights and freedoms of the individual and minority groups. Democracy can also be abused by groups with vested interests.

In Malaysia, it's pretty obvious that the Barisan Nasional, Umno in particular, has ensured it maintains a strong constituency among the rural folk, in particular the rural Malays, and lower-income urban Malays and civil servants.

For example, my gardener of many years, a retired Universiti Malaya general staff, is very grateful to BN for providing him subsidised low-cost housing. Yes, he's literally getting crumbs but it's significant enough to him and his family for them to be grateful and can anyone blame them?

While the increase in the price of fuel due to removal of subsidies may backfire on BN, it's been suggested that its core constituents among the rural fishermen, farmers, workers, etc won't be badly affected or unaffected since most of them through their cooperatives and associations can buy fuel at a discount. So the burden falls on the rural folk who are less likely to vote Barisan.

Well, the main effective challenger in this department is PAS, since it has an articulate alternative programme for the country which targets also mainly a core rural constituency in competition with Umno, what do the others have?

With the Malays now comprising the majority of the population, no significant changes can take place for anyone without the help of the Malays and old communal-based policies won't help even sizeable minorities anymore.

So the opposition should be offering attractive alternative programmes which offer something better for the majority of Malaysians and they should be continuously going down to the grassroots to promote their case.