The people's spoken - Loud and clear!

Malaysia had just had its general election yesterday and the result was shocking. For many years, the Barisan Nasional party (A coalition of parties representing the Malay, Chinese, Indians and other ethnic minorities) have been given very strong mandate to govern by the people. This time around, the BN did not even manage a 2/3 majority. It has only won by a simply majority (winning over 50% of the parlimentary seats) to form the government. Also BN lost five states to the opposition, the new states lost being Peneng, Perak, Selangor and Kedah.

This must have been far beyond BN's expectation. But if have they not see it coming at all, I'm glad that the truth has been smacked right on their faces. My initial prediction for this election was that BN would win but definitely by a reduced majority. I didn't expect not even a 2/3 majority.

What do I think? I think the people has really exercised their democratic rights and send the BN strong messeges. I always have a feeling that in the fifth prime minister reign, the government seemed to be always out of touch with what is actually happening in the country. Politicians from the government often saw it ok to brush off things that groups have to say. Things like 'if you don't like our policies you can leave' and '1000 people in the street protesting doesn't represent the general public and therefore has no relevance' etc had left people fuming in silence. And worse there is always these cocky politicians who would arogantly say rubbish like 'we have the people's support and what we do must be what the people wants'. I felt that they treated us, the public, like very simple beings who still thinks like the older uneducated generation giving undividing support to the party who brought Malaysia independence some 50 years ago. Certain people in the ruling party kept telling the mainstream media that no one in the country reads political blog on the internet, and would not hesitate to critisise bloggers as if bloggers are just a bunch of naughty school boys there to make trouble. They have clearly underestimated the power of internet as a mean to campaign. They need to realise that people (especially the urban, educated ones) are no longer so simple minded to hail whatever a minister/politician in the right wing says. We want our concerns to be taken seriously. And if they can't do that, then out they go.

One of the bloggers thought that many voters did not actually want the opposition candidate to win, but voted for the opposition candidate anyway because they did not want the BN to win. So many of the good BN candidates suffer as a result. And in fact if you scrutanise the results in detail in most constituencies, the winner only won by a tiny majority. That means people's view are still fairly splitted. It'll be interesting to see what the opposition can actually do for it's voters now that they have a stronger presence in the parliment.

Would Malaysia soon be in chaos? Malaysia have not faced such political situation ever in history. The last time the BN sustained such set back (which was not even as bad as the present election) in 1969, riots happened. There were violence between the different races. There were killings and a state of emergency had to be declared. Would it happen this time? We don't know but I don't think so. There is some issues of racial inequality but I think this time around the people didn't really voted for the benefit of their own race. The winners for this election (both from the government and opposition parties) are made up of quite a good mix of different races. The BN formula for power sharing is proven to bring stability, but it can't be the only thing that works. It's time for some social experimentation. This is history in making. Only with change can a civilisation progress. We'll see.