Reference is made here to the contents of the letter by Silent Majority-Ex Member on how Pak Lah has failed the test.

Pak Lah is a populist leader. He has also created high expectations and will be measured by the electorate against whether he can 'walk the talk'.

The biggest challenge is how to deliver on these promises when just about every political chieftain around him - on whom he depends for political support - has vested political and financial interests which would be threatened if these reforms were indeed carried out.

Without political support, there will be neither time nor opportunity for Pak Lah to execute reforms. And without the reforms as promised, he would be perceived to have 'failed the test'.

Either way, it is a Catch 22 situation. He cannot win.

Under our system, political support is given or withdrawn depending on whether a political leader can talk along racial lines and dispense money or contracts to cronies without an open tender.

Whilst this feudal political system of patronage is responsible for vote-buying and corruption, it is also provides for the maintenance of political support from political chieftains and party power brokers.

Patronage is too entrenched in the mind sets of the majority of the political players and supporters in our country. It is the raison d'etre why they entered into politics in the first place.

The problem in the instance of our beloved Pak Lah is that he is also expected by his other political base, the broad electorate, to walk the talk and root out the ills of this feudal political system of patronage.

But these are incompatible objectives. To take one course forfeits the other and vice-versa. The crux of the issue now therefore, is whether Pak Lah will seek re-election.

If he does evince a resolve to execute his reforms beyond rhetoric, his re-election will not be assured by the political chieftains and power brokers. The other course is to seek re-election by not rocking the boat and playing along by the rules of the system and lip service to reforms.

In the longer term, the latter course will disappoint those who gave Pak Lah the resounding electoral support in the last election based on the promise of reforms. This will, in turn, provide the opportunity for political rivals to seek and secure Pak Lah's ouster on the grounds of electoral support having waned.

So either way the options will lead to same outcome. The first accelerating the removal from power, the second, reaching the same conclusion as a matter of time.

Different leaders would have different responses to this dilemma. Most would opt for political survival. What is the point of being martyr in a milieu of 'first class infrastructure and third class mentality'?

But then again, Pak Lah may think that if one is going to be brought down for trying his darnest best to do right, then so be it. For nothing inspires more than sincerity and integrity and these constitute the surest moral compass when confronted with difficult choices.

What would happen (one may speculate) to one who is evicted from power by dirty politicians and a moribund system for acting bravely for the cause of the majority of his countrymen?

One possibility is that such an ouster of an honest and righteous man would only prove conclusively that something was very wrong with the system. There could be an immediate demand for an overhaul and revamp of the political structure to ensure that the position of prime minister is directly voted upon by the general electorate, separate and independent of party's support.

Under such a new system, a leader who has proven unwilling to trade political power for integrity may well be voted in and recurrently voted in for life premiership.

This scenario is not unthinkable. It is true that under present system, political chieftains and power brokers determine who holds the reins of power. But where is the source from which political power is ultimately legitimised? It always comes back to the people.

Even if this does not happen, our 'people's champion' will go down in the annals of the nation's political history as having put up a brave fight for change before going down still fighting.

The imperative of a leader of this kind is clear - he is prepared to forgo temporal power, which is ephemeral anyway, for the longer vindication of history. Given that inheriting the seat of premiership represents an historic opportunity in anyone's lifetime to make a difference for so many, why not try this course for legacy and history?

It may be worth the while.