There must be many occasions when one could find Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's remarks funny (sometimes to the point of ludicrous), which ironically makes him such a darling for quotes by the press.

On this occasion when he commented that one would have to seize the flasher's sarong as evidence to prove flashing, and in the process aggravate the first offence of indecent exposure, it is a mere satiric exaggeration laced with vintage sarcasm in parody and gripe of the intellectually challenged grounds of the syariah court's decision of acquittal calculated more to invite an imputation of subterranean political bias than a lecture on Evidence 101, in case Malcom Putucherry ( Of sarong and mattress has yet failed to appreciate its subtlety.

What is the writer's point on sarong and mattresses?

Soiled mattresses would obviously be needed to be lugged to court for the case of former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim to corroborate that which was alleged to have taken place in the privacy of Tivoli apartment where no other witnesses were present.

Is this corroboration by sarong needed for a case against someone who "flashed" by lifting his sarong in full public view?

Isn't the presence of witnesses sufficient for identification of the flasher that we need his sarong as well? Surely we don't need his semen stain on it to prove indecent public exposure.

Otherwise a precedent will be set for every PAS supporter to expose their genitals to Puteri members and get away scot-free by the simple expedience of quickly getting rid of their sarongs before the police came.

Or better still dash around stark naked without sarongs and clothes because Evidence 101 requires some sarong and clothes as evidence!

I can understand the writer's venting his bile at the prime minister whom he clearly reviled as a dictator for dispensing 'advice' when it suited his convenience that every necessary evidence in any other case that involved his political enemies. But to seize the PM's sarcastic remarks on sarong seizure and mix it up with the stained mattress comparison in Anwar's case as if this showed Mahathir's inconsistency is completely off the mark and would give the PM the last laugh!

Looking beyond — the PM's veiled and disguised sarcasm carries political undertones of the ruling party's concern whether the point is fast reaching where neither he nor the ruling party can do anything much about the many people sympathetic to PAS/Keadilan who have crept into and ensconced themselves silently within civil service, administration and various institutions in the country.

The PM can no longer control entirely nor check for example the myriad of administrative or other decisions handed down and implemented by bureaucrats sympathetic to PAS or Keadilan to which Umno has lost the cultural and political ground. The case in point is the PM's recent lamentation of how pupils in national schools were not allowed to wear skirts or shorts in games. It happened right under his nose.

That the creeping influence of PAS' religious conservatism has spread within the civil service bureaucracy and other institutions — that increasingly, the judicial and administrative decisions handed down may be contrary to the ruling party's interest — that there may be many unseen sympathisers in every branch of government, civil service, hospitals, schools, etc working quietly against the very hand that feeds them — all these and more are the matter of grave concern to the ruling party because one would need these institutions to deliver the goods, and when one cannot do so, one gets his political credibility undermined instead.

The opposition is not only contesting through the ballot box but its sympathisers have been planted within the machinery of the government to undermine or expose it from within.

Now that may be cheering news to those like the writer who are opposed to the politics of Barisan Nasional. What is not so certain is whether it portends well in the longer run for multiculturalism, pluralism, secular rule of law of cosmopolitan Malaysia.