As a Malaysian, I am happy that Malaysia is more stable now ("Easing tensions in Malaysia a relief" by Mr Manoraj Rajathurai; Forum Online, Dec 17).

As Malaysia and Singapore are closely interlinked in all fields, any bad development on either side will affect the other.

To ensure the stability of a country, there should not be race- or religion-based political parties.

We can see that in Malaysia, Umno champions Malay rights and only Malays can be its members.

The Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress accept only Chinese and Indian members respectively, and claim to fight for their respective race's interests.

Malaysia will always have tensions from time to time because its political leaders play the race or religion card to gain support.

In Singapore, the group representation constituency (GRC) system is in place to ensure minorities are well represented in Parliament.

Political parties will have to focus on the interests of all Singaporeans, and not a particular racial or religious group, if they want to win a GRC.

Sim Lim Onn