On July 26, 2004, I hurried to the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall to witness the "The Great Malaysian Debate" between Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang and Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz.

At the end of the entire programme, I felt cheated.

Lim and Nazri were each given 45 minutes to speak. Lim was the first to speak, with an extra five minutes given to him to answer points raised by Nazri. As such, there was actually no debate in the true sense of the word.

The unusual thing was that the organisers could not explain why the second part of the debate, which according to the programme, allocated 15 minutes to each speaker to wind up, was cancelled when the conditions imposed by the police only forbade questions from the floor.

Nor could it be considered as a ceramah (talk) because the topic "ISA - Yes or No?" had been fixed, and it had been promoted with the promise that was to be the historical "Great Malaysian Debate"!