Malaysians Decide 2008

It has been ages since I posted anything new on my blog. There were many factors which was deterring me from posting new post on my blog, name lack of topic to write, lack of motivation, writes blog etc…. Well used not to have those problem…

Anyway, it has been less then a week since Malaysia’s 12 General Election and I really had to write something in regards to what happened in the local political scene. My first comment, “We won big. We won big time”. The Barisan National has never lost so many seats in Parliament and also management of states in the past 50 years. Instead of getting the usual 2/3 of the parliament seats, BN only got a slight majority of 62%. Not only that, but they lost control over 5 states which were Kelantan (definitely!), Kedah, Penang, Perak and Selangor. During a recent interview with ex-premier, Tun Mahathir, Malaysiankini was informed by Tun that he expected Kelantan and Kedah to fall to the opposition due to many factors. When reading this statement, I was kinda shocked that Tun would acknowledge PAS as a formable force in these states.

“PAS is going to take over Kelantan and Kedah”, Tun Mahathir

I have been reading reports and news from various sources which showed that the BN government really wants to take over Kelantan due to the fact that Kelantan has a large amount of off shore oil reserves which has yet to be explored. Since PAS is the ruling party at the state, the BN led federal government would never want to give any commission which would benefit the PAS government. Kedah on the other hand was favoring PAS which represented a more Islamic sentiment instead of UMNO which represented a more liberal and secular based government.

Out you go, Koh Tsu Khoon

Other then these 2 states, I was also having a huge discussion with my Penang friends regarding the Penangnites political views. No one is denying that Koh Tsu Koon is a total retard and a loser in Penang. Tsu Koon has never done anything to help the Penang people and has never stood up for the rights of the Chinese in Penang. During the naming of the candidates for Penang, Koh was nominated at Batu Kawan instead of his usual Tanjung Bungah seat. This definitely showed that Koh was making way for someone more able in Tanjung Bungah and also preparing for his own retirement. Batu Kawan has an ethnic Indian population of about 30% where most of them will definitely be voting for the opposition which has been supported by the Hindraf committee. Contesting in Batu Kawan for Koh was really a no win situation. The joke going around Penang at that time was, “Koh Tsu Khoon doesn’t have any “kawan” in Penang, so he went to contest in Batu Kawan. Since he can’t make friends in Batu Kawan also, he “berkawan” with the batu there”.

Less then a week before the election, BN was having a ceramah in Riffle Range for the Penangnites where they were bashing the opposition and telling everyone of what they have done for the country and telling everyone to support them. There was a major turnout for this ceramah as it pulled in about 40,000 people (based in the papers). From the pictures itself, showed that many people came to listen to the BN representatives. No one is denying the amount of turn up.

The very next day, DAP had another ceramah in Han Jiang high school. The turn up was even bigger then that of BN’s ceramah. Not only the turn up was huge but we could see that those who came sincerely came with the intention of supporting DAP. Many came wearing red as it was the party theme color while during the BN ceramah, there weren’t many who came with attires or signs which showed support for the BN government. I didn’t go to this ceramah, but from what I heard, the collection from this ceramah itself as more then RM110,000. This definitely showed that the people really wanted to help support DAP and the opposition party.

Among other this that my friends and I were discussing was the trend the Penang voters would vote. Most Penangnites would definitely be voting for better financial stability and development. We were guessing that Penangnites would never one to give up this financial stability thus will definitely be voting the BN government. So we were actually guessing that Penang voters would be voting for opposition for the parliament seats because they want a stronger Chinese voice to defend the Chinese while voting BN (namely Gerakan) for the state seats in Penang. Boy… Were we wrong…

Current issues

Since the Pak Lah has been in power, there were many issues which the BN government could not resolve and has been containing the issue. Among the issues were:-

• Rapid increase of crime throughout the country.
• Extremely high inflation rate.
• Improper increase oil and toll prices.
• Corruption of all the levels within the government and private sector.
• Racial tension.
• Education.
• Work opportunities
• Future of Malaysia and Malaysians.
• Pak Lah tidur everywhere
• Khairy Jamaludin (KJ)

These are among the factors which I felt that the Malaysian people were not happy with. I better not elaborate more on this cause it will take days just to write it. I will write my views on these issues when I do have the time.

During the past elections, those who were politically aware about Malaysia would definitely be voting for the opposition. Even voting for the opposition would definitely be decided based on which party contesting ie PAS, PKR or DAP. It would be hard for a DAP member to accept views from PAS and vise versa. There were many people who took the approach of not wanting to know at all and not voting at all.

But during this election, I did notice that many rakyat would definitely be voting for the opposition irrespective of which party is contesting. Even people who previously did not want to know about politics expressed what they felt about the current government. This includes people who previously were die hard BN fan boys. (no puns intended).

Eve of the election

I was voting in the Subang Area. The opposition party being elected here is DAP’s Hanna Yeoh. The first thing I can say is, she damn hot!! Well enough of the looks, Hannah has been vigorously campaigning around the Subang area in padangs for nearly everynight. She was actually giving her ceramah near my house on the Monday of the election week. I didn’t have the chance to go to her ceramah because of work. To say the least, I felt that I missed some meaningful insight and opportunity of witnessing and understanding the what Hannah was gonna offer to the residents of Subang.

Fortunately for me, I stumbled on her last ceramah which was near Sunway Piramid on the eve of election. It was apparent that I needed to go for this ceramah and listen what DAP had to say. As with the ceramah they had near my house, this last ceramah was also held at a play ground / padang. But what really surprised me was the speakers for the ceramah. Who would have guessed that Hannah would invite people of Subang to stand up and talk about Subang and also Malaysia. Who are the people of Subang? There was a Malay teacher, a Chinese student who could speak multiple languages including Tamil and many others. If I am not mistaken, the teacher’s name was Cikgu Raja and one of the things that he said really touched me. It sounded like this, “Kekayaan Malaysia tidak diedarkan kepada kesemua rakyat Malaysia, malah kebanyakkan rakyat Malaysia tidak ada merasa kekayaannya langsung. Kita sebagai rakyat biasa dihadiahkan oleh kerajaan dengan harga barang yang lebih tinggi, hanga minyak yang tinggi dan gaji yang rendah. Sekarang dekat sekolah, ramai kanak-kanak mempunyai masalah kewangan dan makanan. Sebagai seorang cikgu, saya dapat lihat yang mana kanak-kanak yang cukup makan dan yang makan tidak cukup makan. Saya kesian melihat kanak-kanak ini sukar untuk mendapatkan makanan yang diperlukan oleh mereka. Kita semua tahu, sekiranya BN menang dalam pilihan raya yang akan datang ini, semua harga barang akan naik lagi. Jadi pesanan saya pada penyokong BN, juka anda memangkah BN, anda menzalimi anak-anak anda. Anda juga menzalimi anak-anak rakan anda.” His short speech really gave in impact for the people who listened.

Going to the elections

I woke up early on the 8^th of March 2008 which is the Election Day. Realistically, I knew that BN was going to win big during this election. I knew that inflation will increase and prices of everything will go up. But at least I am going to vote in hope that there will be a change. Something that will help the people of Malaysia of the masses. My house was actually at walking distance to the school which was used as a voting poll. While walking there, I saw from a far that there were already a number of cars parked at the school. There was also a BN booth placed nearby where a number of BN workers including Puteri UMNO member (obviously wearing pink) was waiving the BN flag. I wanted to go to them and wish them luck in a sarcastic manner.

After casting my votes, I went home with just more hope and prayers. I was also searching websites to look for the election results and found that Malaysiakini.com would be having a live feed regarding the election ballot count. Having keen feeling that BN would win, I didn’t want to waste too much time on the tv to watch the opposition losing. So I decided to might as well just read the results online.

The beginning of a new Malaysia

The live telecast of the ballot count would begin at 9 pm on most tv channels. Surprisingly to me they started announcing Sabah and Sarawak first. And you can guess it, all of them are won by BN. It was nearly 10 pm and I hardly heard any news about the Peninsular states yet so I quickly took out my laptop and looked at the results online.

The first news which I saw was my Subang candidate, Hannah Yeoh was leading in the ballot count. Seems interesting to me at that point of time, that a first timer in the political scene would be leading the ballot count and stands a chance in winning the election. After a few minutes I refreshed the Malaysiakini page and to my surprise, Teressa Kok won her parliament seat with a 36,000 majority. That was the first shock which I read regarding the elections.

I become more enticed by listening to this result. Seeing that the site itself had congestion problems, malaysiakini opened up 2 more mirror sites to cater for the increased of traffic. Selfishly, I opened all the links and refreshed them all at once. :D the next biggest surpise was when I read that DAP won most of the seats in Penang and DAP would be the govern Penang. This news came as a total shock but at the same time shows that Malaysians will have hope for a better future.

All night long I turned on the television but watched it sparingly but concentrated more on the online results. One by one, the news were coming as a surprise and joy for myself and millions of voters. The next news I heard was Samy Vellu lost his parliament seat followed by Sharizat. Anwar’s daughter, Nurul Izzah did her job by defeating the incumbent and this was the turning point of my hope that the opposition would win big.

Hours later, after watching BN’s defeat in Penincular on television (which was already shown on the internet), more startling news that Selangor and Perak fell to the opposition. This was the biggest surprise to everyone and especially to Pak Lah and his gang.

From here on, I started to hear rumors from friends that the DAP we able to go to the Penang state office and confiscate documents regarding to state projects. The FRU was not able to stop them from entering the premise in time. An hour or so later, I heard that the PAS and PKR supporters went to SUK Shah Alam to make sure that no government documents were removed from the premise by the BN officials. Unfortunately, the FRU were able to stop these supporters from entering the premise. More news later came in that police and FRU were all over Selangor and Kuala Lumpur as the news that the opposition has won majority number of seats there. But like I said earlier, these were just rumors and news which I heard from people and something which I can authenticate.

At about 2 am on Sunday morning, BN was informed that they won with a slight majority in the parliament and was given the mandate to form a government. But the look at Pak Lah’s face was priceless. I have never seen the poor old chap so awake (not sleeping) ever. The television channels ended at about 3 am but they have yet to announce the full results for the Selangor and Perak seats. This was definitely the most disgraceful election telecast which I have ever watched.

Situation seems to calm down the next day. Many questions were being asked, some have been answered but some created more questions. Where are we as Malaysians going? Where are we headed to for the next 5 years? What would become of UMNO and the future of BN? Lots of questions has yet to be answered. We will definitely see a new dawn in Malaysia. And hopefully this new dawn will give us better hope and unity for all of Malaysian on God’s Land.