Cred­it : SCMP

Malaysians have final­ly devel­oped a lev­el of polit­i­cal matu­ri­ty that led us tak­ing our des­tiny into our own hands (or fin­ger).

Hav­ing to put up with end­less news of crimes, done by the peo­ple high up in the past Gov­ern­ment of Malaysia, involv­ing bil­lions of Ring­git, it is the time for the peo­ple to over­turn the rul­ing gov­ern­ment.

The rul­ing gov­ern­ment then, Barisan Nation­al or BN has been the rul­ing par­ty through­out 61 years of Malaysi­a’s his­to­ry.

It is no sur­prise that many old­er Malaysians do not like Tun Dr. Mahathir, the high prices of vehi­cles, tolls, low salaries, high-income inequal­i­ty, con­straints of Chi­nese Edu­ca­tion, lack of devel­op­ment in the East Coast and East Malaysia, inef­fi­cient pub­lic trans­porta­tion, lop­sided tolled high­way agree­ments and lop­sided inde­pen­dent pow­er plant agree­ments.

Pakatan Hara­pan sup­port­ers cheer­ing. Cred­it: Reuters

Now he is back with a vengeance, form­ing an alliance with the oppo­si­tion par­ty, and now win­ning the 14th Gen­er­al Elec­tion. It was­n’t an easy win, but I am sure Tun Dr. Mahathir had all the knowl­edge and moves from his Prime Min­is­ter days of 22 years!

Barisan Nation­al’s arro­gance is what caused them to lose the GE14. Najib had all the work done to cheat, from ger­ry­man­der­ing, bribery, deceit, intim­i­da­tion, black­mail­ing and all oth­er tac­tics to scare his oppo­nents. How­ev­er, Najib for­got one thing, his oppo­nent is Tun Dr. Mahathir, his men­tor, the per­son who had prob­a­bly thought him most of the things he knew.

Since 2009, Najib has tar­nished every name that Tun Dr. Mohamad had built for us Malaysians. From ban­ning of Sarawak Report to sell­ing our nation­al car Pro­ton, and of course 1 Malaysia Devel­op­ment Berhad (1MDB). Press were feed with pro­pa­gan­da and laws are cre­at­ed overnight to pro­tect him and his mem­bers.

Activists are jailed, car­toon­ists round­ed up by the police, even the mem­bers of the press and media are scru­ti­niz­ing with what they put to print. Sev­er­al news out­lets were closed down because they had crit­i­cized Najib’s admin­is­tra­tion.

We were brought up in a way that racism sets us apart. It was very clear in the Barisan Nation­al pro­pa­gan­da. The con­cept of ket­u­a­nan Melayu is one such exam­ple.

Per­haps the gen­er­al Malaysians had had enough. Per­haps it is now that they tru­ly know their peo­ple’s pow­er. Per­haps Najib’s admin­is­tra­tion and his dirty tac­tics are too much for gen­er­al Malaysians like you and me to bear, or per­haps it is the new media now, that equipt us with a weapon that we now had, to over­turn what we called a klep­to­crat­ic gov­ern­ment. Per­haps, we just could not take Najib’s and his alliances’ bull­shit any­more.

I tru­ly hope, by the change of the rul­ing par­ty, wll change some of these.

Many Malaysians flock to the neigh­bor­ing coun­try, and some far away because they had lost hope not with their coun­try, but the peo­ple run­ning them. Now, it is time for these Malaysians to come back to Malaysia.

Today would be a his­to­ry and sig­nif­i­cant day for many Malaysians. Not because sud­den­ly our nation will become per­fect, not because sud­den­ly all our prob­lems, crimes, edu­ca­tions, eco­nom­ic would dis­ap­pear. It is his­toric because we have shown a sig­nif­i­cant step towards a mature democ­ra­cy.

Changes will take time, and as with Tun Dr. Mahathir’s say­ing

Changes takes time, even talk­ing to you takes time.


Tun Dr. Mahathir address­ing the press. Cred­it: Malaysi­aki­ni

There are no words to express the feel­ings that I believe most Malaysians would be feel­ing. The feel­ing of an accom­plish­ment, the feel­ing of joy and per­haps some tears that go with it. It is so intense that, I myself lift up my fists up high in the air and cheered.

Social media was abuzz with con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sages that, final­ly we Malaysian had won the bat­tle, the bat­tle to over­rule the rul­ing par­ty, the bat­tle to over­turn a klep­to­crat­ic gov­ern­ment. It was so intense that social media posts that are not remote­ly relat­ed to the Gen­er­al Elec­tion got buried deep under.

I was dri­ving from Kuala Lip­is back to Kuala Lumpur, on the 9th of May, 2018, the day that the whole nation came out to cast their votes. It was chaot­ic, pack and almost fes­tive; there are cars dec­o­rat­ed with par­ty flags, ban­ners were fly­ing. Every­one was cheer­ing for Pakatan Hara­pan, the oppo­si­tion par­ty, led by Tun Dr. Mohamad.

News of how incom­pe­tent the Elec­tion Com­mi­sion starts to sur­face, from the late arrival of postal votes to the mis­man­age­ment of bal­lot box­es. Some were even in the queue for more than 6 hours, just for that 1 vote that could have change their future.

Cred­it Ee Chia, Malaysi­aki­ni

At about 11 PM, news of Pre­sid­ing Offi­cers refusal to sign the Borang 14 start­ed to sur­face. Police vehi­cles are blocked or being inspect­ed by the mem­bers of the pub­lic, and riot police deployed for crowd con­trol. The num­bers of seats won by Pakatan Hara­pan stopped.

At 4:50 am, 10th of May, the offi­cial results were announced. Pakatan Hara­pan wins 113 seats, and Barisan Nation­al wins 79. The vic­to­ry is remark­able see­ing how the Elec­tion Com­mi­sion attempts to frus­trate both the vot­ers and the oppo­si­tion cam­paigns.

Tun Dr. Mahathir wav­ing a Malaysian flag

The announce­ment was made, it was a two-day pub­lic hol­i­day for the pub­lic. We are all wait­ing for Tun Dr. Mahathir to be sworn in by the Yang di-Per­tu­an Agong. The cer­e­mo­ny was delayed till 9:30 pm.

For a good rea­son.

It was lat­er reviewed that the two days pub­lic hol­i­day were giv­en so that the stock mar­ket is closed, no banks were oper­a­tional, for one good rea­son; no mon­ey could be laun­dered off the coun­try.

Then, the Yang di-Per­tu­an Agong was not in the coun­try, to pre­vent the then Prime Min­is­ter, Najib Razak from call­ing a state emer­gency, a move that Tun Dr. Mahathir afraid that he might do, thus requir­ing His Majesty’s con­sent. The urgency of Tun Dr. Mahathir to form a gov­ern­ment can be heard dur­ing his press con­fer­ence address­ing the media.

For 22 years this man has been the Prime Min­is­ter, it is no won­der he had won the elec­tion. His plans and exe­cu­tion are so many steps ahead of Najib Razak. It is no won­der that in one of his speech, he indi­cates that he would only want to be in office for 2 years, to bring Malaysia back to his glo­ry.

For that, I tru­ly respect this man, for all the faults he has done, he deserves to be for­giv­en. After­all, we are man, and man makes mis­takes.

Let’s make Malaysia great again. Let’s put Malaysia on the map again.