Referring to the Barisan Alternatif victory in Lunas, an article by Utusan Malaysia's Rozaman Ismail on Dec 1, had said: "Is it true that the Chinese voters in the country cannot be trusted anymore? Going by the figures polled by BN and BA, particularly in Chinese-majority areas, the most accurate answer would be 'yes'."

Another article by Astora Jabat on Dec 3 on the same paper said, "What happened in Lunas has also proved the opinion that the Chinese are smartest in making comparisons and are not taken in by calls to vote for development anymore. They are too nave, easily influenced by accusations and cannot accept criticism even when it is only targetted at extremist groups in the Chinese society."

Why blame certain quarters or races? How about the people who benefit from BN policies but are BA hardcore supporter now? How do you describe them?

There is this group of well-educated people who received scholarship from the BN-controlled government and studied overseas for their degrees and PhDs. These people now not only support BA but also join the alliance as a think tank to tackle the BN government.

There is this group of ex-supporters of the BN government. They make a lot of money from the contracts and projects awarded by the BN government, but now they use this money to support BA.

There is this group of people who are working for the BN government. They are supporting BA because they realise that the BN government only takes care of their cronies. Many top-ranking officers became millionaires just after a few months of retirement. They go around taking over listed companies and getting big projects. The piece of cake is big but the cronies are simply too greedy, they want every piece.

There is this group of highly-respected educationists in local universities who told their students that they cannot accept what the BN leader has been doing. They could not accept the rags-to-riches stories and the "Maggi Mee" millionaires.

They do not understand why the cronies are always considered to be more "capable" candidates and get appointed to top positions in BN-controlled business organisations. These organisations always end up being bailed out using the people's money anyway.

There is this group of businessmen who survive on government contracts and projects. They are not happy that the big and profitable contracts will always be awarded to cronies while they have to compete in open tenders. They do not want to be the ones who eat what others left behind.

There is middle-income group. They graduated from local universities and working for cronies-controlled company. They do not understand why some of their peers were offered share options and become instant millionaires, just because they are someone's son, son-in-law, brother, etc.

These wage-earners have to spend most of their income paying instalments for their small apartment, expensive national car (with expensive spare parts), and still find themselves in debt from credit cards and Courts Mammoth payments. They also want to drive luxury German cars and stay beside the golf course, but their voice has been constantly ignored. They now prefer to shout "reformasi".