John Morley in Recollections said that "The proper memory for a politician is one that knows when to remember and when to forget".

Nowhere does this insight means more to me than in the stance of PAS Youth chief Mahfuz Omar when he called government's decision to implement a system based on meritocracy for the next intake of university students as 'revenge', 'irrational', 'inappropriate', 'useless' (Meritocracy system for varsity intake a revenge tactic: PAS - July 29 ).

Mahfuz remembered Umno's inconsistency that "When Suqiu requested a review of the quota system, they were met with harsh reactions from Umno and now Umno itself wants to abolish the quota system".

But he forgot or conveniently chose to forget PAS' inconsistency as correctly pointed out by Umno vice president Tan Sri Muhammad Taib who was reported by The Star today to have "slammed PAS for objecting to the move as it was the party which supported Suqui when it called for review of the Malay privileges" on grounds that "in Islam, there is no quota system".

In this contest of inconsistencies, PAS loses out for the following reasons.

Umno's review of the quota system is only meant for next year's intake to jolt Malay students into not taking their benefits for granted and spending too much time on political activities instead of on their studies. It is not meant to be an across the board retraction of Malay privileges.

The experiment can also be viewed from another angle of progressively building self-reliance on the part of Malay students in their early formative years in order to prepare them for leadership in the age of globalisation. With heavy reliance on quotas and reverse psychological discrimination, they cannot survive with quotas which may lead to negative consequences.

In the sense that it is a move to help and prepare Malays develop their innate capability in this information age, it is consistent with Umnos raison d'etre .

PAS does not fare so well in this contest because all along it has been perceived to be promoting a religious hegemonic order in desiring to form the Islamic state and also being guilty of discriminating non-Muslims from being members.

The reactionary stance of Mahfuz then is seen to be consistent with PAS' earlier opposition to University Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar), which although was conceived as a Malaysian project, was, however, resisted by PAS on somewhat racial grounds.

This places PAS on an untenable position of having seen to be actively promoting hegemonic discrimination not only on religious lines but racial lines as well.

Far from addressing the concerns of Malaysian non-Muslims and non-Malays, PAS's stance has aggravated them - whilst Umno is perceived to be progressively more moderate and Malaysian in outlook, PAS is going the opposite direction.

All this does not help Lim Kit Siang's task of persuading delegates to find a compromise with PAS over the Islamic state issue in the coming DAP's annual congress.

Besides, the business and investment community is also not comfortable with its theocratic policies and will use their money to back whosoever that PAS opposes.

If PAS is also confident about its agenda and ability to win, it should strike out on its own instead of remaining within the Barisan Alternatif (BA) as a political liability to the rest.

In my frank opinion, this country cannot have a viable Opposition front to check the ruling party's excesses, and have a credible 'Two Front System' operating on democratic lines, if it includes a non-starter party like PAS that seeks to take the country back to medieval times when the country is presently confronted with the challenge of how to integrate and prosper in the age of globalisation and information technology.

To remain relevant, BA must address the problem of PAS and conceive an alternative (without PAS) to the Alternative Front.