Limited Options

So it didn't happen. The unconventional change in government, that is.

Not that it won't happen. My gut feeling is that it will.

I'm more interested in seeing the BN goons leave, than the new party coming into government. Of course, there is a lot being said about the desperate need to revive the economy.

Me? I'm not convinced PR can do it though. They have never had experience in the administration of a nation. And I still remember how close we came to being under the strangling clutches of the IMF.

I just detest that we have so few options, at this point. I feel like I'm being perpetually threatened.

Take RPK, who is currently under the ISA, for instance. I like the bugger, but before he was taken in, he gave the country an ultimatum:

Today, I received many phone calls from concerned friends who told me that the government is considering detaining me under the Internal Security Act ‘very soon’. If that does happen, then this could probably be the last article I write, at least until 16 September 2008. So I too need Anwar to succeed. If not I will be in Kamunting for quite some time to come and you will not hear from me over the next couple of years.

Yes, I too have placed, not only my money, but also my freedom on Anwar. And if Anwar fails to deliver his promise on 16 September 2008, not only he but I as well am headed for a fall. But I have confidence he will do it. And I have confidence that my stay in Kamunting will not be for two years but for a mere two weeks.

But if I am wrong…..well, then see you maybe in six or seven years time, because for sure Najib Tun Razak will not release me in 2010 when he becomes Prime Minister. What he would do, instead, would be to rollover my two-year detention another two years, and another two years, and another two years, until I am too old to think and write anymore.

Which is why so few people are very concerned about the remaining two being held over a charge the government can't even legitimately come up with.

Because in their minds, the rakyat expect Anwar to deliver the change in government and immediately release them.