It was bollocks from the Day 1 when DAP’s Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng said that it would notenter into any form of agreement with PAS over the latter’s stand of establishing Syariah laws based on hudud if it were to seize power in the country. It was reported (NST, pg 16, 8 Aug 07) that PKR president Datin Seri Wan Azizah revealed that “PKR, PAS and DAP had agreed in principle that only one opposition candidate would face a BN candidate. ‘there will be no three-cornered fights. We want to ensure that there is only one opposition candidate.’”

Wan Azizah revelation indicates that there is a tacit agreement that DAP will not challenge PAS on any overlapping seat contest.

Earlier Guan Eng stated that DAP would only co-operate with PKR and strongly shot down the known fact that DAP was also in talks with PAS. Guan Eng claimed that “DAP’s doors are closed to PAS as far as electoral cooperation is concerned. There will be no changes or compromise in the party’s stand on the matter and talks of cooperation are baseless.”

DAP has obviously gone back on its words and betrayed its followers by concurring with PAS on seat allocation. DAP had withdrawn from the Alternative Front in 2001 citing that it could not reconcile with PAS’s Islamist policies in Malaysia.Wouldn’t DAP’s U-turn suggest that it consents with the enactment of hudud laws which PAS postulates?

In name, the Opposition parties may not call themselves the Alternative Front. But in essence, they have already demonstrated themselves the Alternative Front.