In the end, it had to come to what had been expected. PAS demonstrated itself as a principled party - in a field where principles are few - when it rejected all forms of co-operation with Umno or even a coalition government.

But that does not spell the end of the ongoing muzakarah (dialogue) between Umno and the Islamists.

PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang (pic, face away hugging nik aziz) has reiterated his party’s commitment to the Pakatan Rakyat and reformation of the government and issued an open call for defections from the ruling coalition at the Federal level. Many analysts had in fact predicted that the so-called Umno-PAS Malay unity talks were a non-starter for various reasons and would fizzle out sooner, rather than later, despite all the hype generated in the pro-government mainstream Malay media which, in the words of fallen angel Anwar Ibrahim, has gone to town with the worst kind of racist reporting it could muster for decades.