Aman Rais in his article 'Keadilan dijangkit penyakit Umno' (26 Okt) is really illustrating the lack of strong idealism in the party's struggle. If his analysis of the current situation in Keadilan is correct, that the former leaders of Abim is trying to control the leadership of the party, then what we are seeing is that Keadilan is slipping into chauvinistic politics that is characterised by other main political parties in Malaysia.

This is going to be a party dominated by the ideas of a group of people who fight for the future of Malays in general, and Islam in particular, and not as a party fighting for the future of Malaysians. We have now a combination of Umno and PAS in the party.

In this struggle, which saw Keadilan lose Dr Chandra Muzaffar who is probably the most respectable figure in the movement and probably have more trust from other ethnic groups than any other Keadilan leaders. This is a big blow to Keadilan's reputation. And in all this power struggle that is going on, I wonder where is Dr Wan Azizah? Does she provide the necessary leadership to steer Keadilan into a political party with a purpose and try to keep 'multi-culturalism' within Keadilan intact? Or her preoccupation is still with freeing her husband at all cost? No one can vote for a party that is seen in this very narrow light.

Amin Rais will probably be proven right in predicting the demise of Keadilan. DAP was a party which started off to fight for all Malaysians. However, it started to slip into chauvinistic politics for whatever reason, and the influence of DAP is slipping. We see the same with Keadilan nowadays as Keadilan continues to sleep in the same bed as PAS. No political party which fights for all Malaysians can be seen doing that.

Keadilan is not any more interesting than other political parties in Malaysia until it takes the middle road, one that can work based on the compromise of Barisan National, but with less big-brother small-brother mentality as seen in the relationship between Umno and other component parties. Keadilan must also be honest.

The leadership must be able to persuade all Malaysians that they have the recipe for development, most importantly a kind of social development that can bring all races on an equal footing. The leadership must be open to adopt and innovate suitable methods from whatever sources to bring economic and social developments to Malaysia. Umno in its dealing with other component parties, do not have this.

As things stand, Keadilan is just another party that try to promote 'multi-culturalism' in Malaysia's political scene, but failed miserably.