The campaign period leading up to the general elections is often light-heartedly called "the silly season". This is the period when colourful fringe parties emerge with their eccentric leaders and often way-out manifestos. This is also the period when politicians will do absolutely anything -- from kissing babies to smooching with elephants -- just to get their faces in the media.

But looking at our mainstream newspapers, one quickly realises that this is not the "silly season". How can it be when page after page are election advertisements by the caretaker government clearly aimed at intimidating Malaysian citizens? No, this is the "dirty season" with a bunch of Hitler-type goons drawing up the crudest, crassest advertising strategy possible for the caretaker government.

These bully-boy tactics have absolutely no place in a civilised democracy. While their intention is to intimidate, they have only succeeded in annoying all peace-loving Malaysians who resent these crude ads which insult their intelligence -- ads that look suspiciously like they were contrived in the back lot of some cheap production house.

You would think that 42-plus years after Merdeka, and just a step away from a new millennium and a further heartbeat away from the much-hyped 2020, our so-called leaders who talk about democracy, a "caring society" and "developed country status" would be above all these uncivlised tactics. Evidently not.

For crying out loud, Malaysians as a whole have been peace-loving for years. And we remain that way not because of a bunch of irresponsible, self-interested politicians from whichever party. We remain that way because we, the citizens of this country, abhor violence. Simple as that.

It is pathetic for any political party, especially Barisan Nasional, to take sole credit for our achievements and good sense as citizens. It is equally pathetic for BN to blindly assert in these election advertisements that things will turn ugly if it is not voted in again.

Wake up and smell the coffee, folks -- the people who have supposedly lead us, and who talk about a "free", "united" and "successful" nation in their manifesto, cannot in the same breath do the opposite and try to prevent us from voting freely by creating disunity and depicting this nation's citizens as unruly mobs, as they have attempted to do in these inane and irresponsible ads.

In all fairness, at no point has Barisan Alternatif advocated violence of any sort to resolve anything. Even Kelantan, the much maligned PAS-controlled state, has never been a violent state -- certainly no more violent than say, Johor. And even when DAP had a group of its state representatives facing up to BN' s representatives in Penang during the 1990-1995 State Parliamentary session, there was no violence.

So what's all this current imagery about? Try as the mainstream media may to demonise BA, the point is that the leaders and members of BA are still human beings -- Malaysians, who really have no history of violence. Allegations of violence, especially by the ruling coalition, certainly have been plenty. But where is the evidence?

When we are being asked -- under the much-heralded "Vision 2020" -- to establish "a fully moral and ethical society" and, not forgetting, "a scientific and progressive" one, surely those who tell us to do so must be rational themselves and provide concrete evidence when they make allegations, lest they be accused of being unethical, immoral and unscientific.

Instead, we see inane imagery being concocted with very little basis in reality. Unfortunately, this type of stupidity does not end here. True to form, in moments like this, lackeys in the media come up with "analysis" which are so blatantly one-sided that I'm sure only they themselves are convinced. Hence, you get one particular tabloid conducting two silly, unrepresentative voter surveys, one so obviously full of holes and the other given a gloss of "scientific reliability" because it was conducted by an academic.

The studies ended up being publicly criticised by respected academics, and could not be defended by the researcher. Nonetheless, along comes some reporter who probably cannot read, who then picks up the sorry pieces of data from the faulty study, twists the statistics further, and comes out with grand -- but false -- claims that support the caretaker government. That is precisely what transpired in The Star last Sunday.

Of course, he's not the only one. Many more have crawled out of the woodwork, trying hard to make their presence felt, each making it a point to outdo the other's mediocrity. I would hope that these are not the same people who signed the memorandum in May seeking the repeal of the Printing Presses and Publications Act.

But such mediocrity comes nowhere close to that shown by our so-called "broadcast journalists" who are, come to think of it, nothing more than hack reporters. All dolled up like Barbie, they then go on trying earnestly to run down Barisan Alternatif parties, again without giving them the right to reply.

So, yes, folks, welcome to the "dirty season" -- where decency gets thrown out of the window, where morals and ethics are trampled underfoot, and where "Asian Values" take on a shameful dimension. We deserve better.