Parti Keadilan Nasional's Dr Chandra Muzaffar, with the apparent support of PAS' spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, had chided both DAP and PAS deputy president for making public press statements of the dispute over PAS' Islamic state, and that such disputes were better thrashed out in the front's leadership high-level council meeting.

This stance on Keadilan's part is not transparent. The Malaysian public deserves to know what is the real stand of the respective component parties over this important issue.

DAP's Karpal Singh and PAS' Abdul Hadi Awang are forthright and direct; they go for the jugular, which is good. We don't need double talk, euphemisms and subterranean motives. We don't need the front's facade of unity concealing underlying agendas to resurface after conning us of our votes and support.

This is an age where transparency and disclosure are the watchwords and standard of behavior expected of both the government as well as the opposition.

There is no point in PAS' subscribing openly to the front's common manifesto of a just Malaysian society based on democratic principles when to PAS, it means an Islamic society, a less threatening euphemism for 'Islamic state'!

Keadilan should not prevaricate when PAS and DAP each takes a stand on the Islamic state, albeit opposing. Keadilan should take a stand on principle for the sake of its own credibility rather than protecting its own political survival as a flyweight amongst the front's component parties by seeking to mediate between PAS and DAP in the secrecy of the front's high-level deliberations.

The Alternative Front has no right to call on the government to be transparent when it contrives to do no better in relation to the public on the Islamic state issue. Otherwise, the word 'front' in the Alternative Front will mean not just an organised political group but just a bluff, a pretext serving to cover conspiracies and other agendas.