Today, as I woke up to the usual Sunday's sunshine, the serene view outside of my window(clear, blue sky and billowing trees to the cooling breeze) underlies the silent change that happen throughout Malaysia yesterday... Yes, its the General Election 2008. And I stay up throughout night until early morning(4:30 am) just to witness the historical moment. IT IS HISTORICAL FOR ALL THE MALAYSIAN.
The current BN government had been denied of a 2/3 majority by the voters. 82 seats in total had been taken by the Opposition while BN clings on to 140 seats, 8 seats short of a 2/3 majority mandate. The biggest shocker for me is definitely from the strong showing of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, bagging 31 parliementary seats, growing from the sole 1 (Wan Azizah of Permatang Pauh) in the previous term and grabbing 9 parliementary seats in Selangor, a staggering 3100% growth, hence becoming the single largest opposition party in the parliement. It is expected that the leader of opposition in parliament will come from PKR. Democratic Action Party has its strong showing as well, maintaining all their previously held seats (12 seats) with greater majority while doubled (and more) seats (28 seats) in parliament with most of their seats came the frontline state, Penang and Perak. PAS increased their seats as well, securing most of the parliament seat allocated to Kelantan while making major inroad to the northern heartland, Kedah, bagging 23 seats which is tripled(and more) from the previous 7. A couple of bigshots of BN faced their shocking defeat, ranging from Datuk Seri Shahrizat lost to Anwar's daughter in Lembah Pantai, Zainuddin Maidin lost Sungai Petani, M. Kayveas lost Taiping and Samy Vellu (old fart) finally lost Sungai Siput. Koh Tsu Koon suffered the worst fate, where his parliament debut after his 18 years stint as CM is Penang failed and lost Batu Kawan.
The shocker doesn't end in the parliamentary level. The results for state assembly seat is even more shocking with total of 5 state assembly had been taken by Opposition, namely Kelantan, Penang, Kedah, Perak and Selangor. PAS had increased their grip in Kelantan with 38 seats and a extra 1 goes to PKR, total up as 39 out of 45, a growth from their slim majority of 24 seats in the previous election in 2004 and thus maintaining their mandate for another 5 years. (BN: 6) The state election result in Penang has to be the epicenter of the shockwave sent across the nation, with the Opposition winning in landslide across the state of Penang, bagging an overwhelming 29 seats out of 40 (almost 3/4 majority) state seats which breakdown into 19 seats for DAP, 9 seats for PKR and 1 for PAS. (BN: 11). As for Kedah, PAS had made a successful inroad into the traditional heartland grabbing 16 state seats while PKR 4, DAP and independent got 1 respectively total up as 22 seats, a simple majority out of 36 seats. (BN: 14). Perak is among the hottest battleground in the current election and the final results reflects the intensity of battle there. The opposition narrowly take down Perak with a simple majority of 31 seats over 59 seats (BN: 28), a mere 2 seats advantage which break down to 18 for DAP, 7 for PKR and 6 for PAS. (In fact, Perak is the last state to confirm their seats and I waited until 4:30 am just for this.) Shock came from Selangor as well, the richest, most industrialized and urbanized state in Malaysia saw widespread disenchantment of urban voter resulting in large swing of vote and the opposition securing a comfortable majority of 36 seats over 56 seats, 1 seat short of 2/3 majority which can break down into PKR 15 seats, DAP 13 seats and PAS 8 seats. (BN: 20)
Personally, I totally did not anticipate the wind of change could be THIS strong. (as quote from the media, a TSUNAMI within the ballot box) I already expected that the opposition will win lots of seat this time but not 5 opposition state government and the end of long ultimate dominance (a.k.a. 2/3 majority) of BN in parliament. This actually shows something: widespread disenchantment of voters across all backgrounds and ethnic (Important even though mostly urban voters) is indeed very imminent and BN need a reality check whether their magic formula that has been used for years is still working or not. Meanwhile for the oppositions who won the states, they themselves need to prepare for a new dimension, of being the one ruling than the one opposing and they need to learn to cooperate with each other by forming coalition governments in the states. The future of these states remains unknown but will definitely unravel for the next five years until the next general election. To tell the truth, I am a lil bit scared because of these development, but another half of me is very excited, excited that democracy is still working in Malaysia and the voters had done their responsibility with honour and bravery.
At the same time, there are many rumors flying around (in the form of sms) about demonstration, conflict and worse, communal violence in those states taken by opposition. In fact, my mom called me just now (as well as a few of my friend) to check on my safety and ask me not to go anywhere and refrain from making any political statement. Some people even parellel this to the event before the 13th May Tragedy, the communal violence that sent the nation into insurgency in 1969. In retrospect its ALMOST parallel except one thing: there is no victory rally or counter-rally (the rowdy rally from both sides is the culprit of 13th May) occuring this time. In fact, both sides have warned their supporter not to run any rally whatsover after the results in revealed. I believe most of us today are matured and brilliant enough to handle these feeling of victory as well as defeat. Koh Tsu Koon has shown great amount of bravery in admitting the grim defeat in Penang during the press conference in TV and this proves that democracy is still working Malaysia. Good job, Malaysian.
An balanced division of power between the government and opposition is needed to ensure the governance is properly delivered and our plight will be adressed properly to the national level. A new door has open to new phenomena of Malaysian politics.
However still, I personally still have several concern about the formation of federal government and cabinet. With MCA, Gerakan and MIC suffered a terrible setback, I wonder how the negotiation in dividing the cabinet seat be done. They did promise to create a multiracial cabinet from all the member parties, I can see these three parties within the BN would found themselves in a extremely vulnerable position since they lost most of their mandates. The BN magical formula is finally up to their hardest test ever.
Another things that concerns me: most of the eagles of UMNO still lingers around and with a voracious addition in the form of Khairy Jamaluddin, the so-called Oxfordian who isn't act like one and our PM's son in law. Seriously, if he scream one more time reactionary, racist statement in parliament, I hope he would die in hell. We need live broadcast of Parliament in the future, NOW. If BN don't want to loose its legitimacy further while opposition want to shows its capability to the public, this is their first thing they have to pass in the parliament. Fingers crossed, people!!!!
ps: It takes me great pain to highlight and colors the shortform for each political party with their party color. But it looks colorful LOL.
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