Your interview with Zambry Abdul Kadir has been as fascinating as it has been revealing. This comes from the utter predictability of his answers to your questions. Like a man trying to appease a disillusioned lady, he readily promises the moon and stars to get her back.

So, of course Barisan Nasional has been doing the right thing in the past, but of course it has made some mistakes. Of course it can improve its performance. Of course it will do the right thing in future, especially with the lessons of the March 8 general elections and the more recent Bukit Gantang by-election.

Of course he and his team can perform better in governing and managing Perak than the opposition. Of course, of course, of course. Just give him the opportunity to prove it!

How will he go about to do this, what are his game plans? For this he apparently quoted, ‘Go back to the people. Go back in a sense of being people-centric, understanding the people on what they really want'.

He also mentioned the rule of law and the wisdom of due process in its application. Apply all these and everything will turn out fine.

I make no pretensions. I do not think for once he has sincerity of heart when expressing empathy for the people the way he did. In the case of the Perak constitutional debacle, he really had nothing useful to say apart from the boring same stale arguments employed by the Ketuanan Melayu leadership, something like ‘let the law take its course'.

Now we know what this ‘let the law take its course' means.

It means the law will be reinterpreted, facts and evidences modified or suppressed, or erased altogether, judges attending to its deliberations pre-selected, ie, the goal-posts changed, to ensure the leaders' version of events carry the day.

It's a perfect case study demonstrating the adage that ‘might is right' and a mockery of its anti-thesis that ‘truth is righ't. So much for rule of law and due process.

What about the Perak people's overt and consistent wish for fresh elections, for ‘what they really want'? In the case of Perak, the people were saying ‘give us back our right, let us choose the leader we want.'

His reply has been the rather guilt-laden ‘I can't do that, for our relationship is bigger and deeper than that.'

Huh?

Here is a top leader - a mentri besar - voicing in all apparent seriousness that he'd do anything and everything to serve the interest of the people, but would ignore the first thing that they really want, namely, a fresh election for selecting their own representatives for their own legislative assembly that will debate and approve their own laws!

It's mind-boggling. And for him to say that this rejection is due to something ‘bigger and deeper', something more profound and virtuous than the people's wishes, is treasonous.

Which brings me to the point of this letter. What on earth can be ‘bigger and deeper' than the people's wishes? Zambry was smart enough not to spell out specifically what these are.

But we too can be smart enough to decipher what they are. In a government system featured by the rule of the people, by the people and for the people, everything centres on the people. So, what could be ‘bigger and deeper' than the people's wishes?

Here's my humble view: Zambry is in effect stating that in the Perak government's scheme of things, it is to begin with a government of the ruler, by the Barisan Nasional and (only then) for the people. So the ‘bigger and deeper' elements appears to be the interest of the ruler and the Barisan Nasional government.

The Ketuanan Melayu leaders might refer to these ideals by many labels like ‘national security', ‘people's safety', the ubiquitous ‘peace and harmony'; all under the ambit of ‘untuk agama bangsa dan negara'. We are very familiar with them all, for they have been conditioned into our grey matter for far too long already.

But do check me whether I am right or wrong: aren't these mere euphemisms for the protection of the self-interest of people running and taking full advantage of a compromised democratic government system and broken state institutions?

If the answer is in the positive, then (don't we know it) Perak is in a sorry situation for its leaders are more than ready to compromise established democratic principles and truth in favour of personal and individual interest viz, self-preservation, greed, corruption and hunger for power.

In the event, Zambry's ‘of courses' do sound hollow.