BALLS—yesterday they were missing in the Land Below The Wind. The Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition almost achieved a clean sweep of the state seats in the 12th general election. I braved the rain to perform my duty at the polling station. But it was not meant to be—there were simply not enough of us with balls.
Some of my West Malaysian friends have asked me why we Sabahans had no balls. Well, I can't speak for all of us. However, let me say that having balls did us no good in the past. There was once when Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) pulled out of the BN, but won the election with a slim majority. The following weeks saw many elected jokers selling themselves to the BN. In the end, BN regained the majority, and with it took control of Sabah once again. It ended PBS's 9-year rule of the state. It was only years later that the PBS was readmitted into BN. It was a very severe punishment by the BN.
Within the next few weeks from now, of course some people will be going on fishing expeditions. If some unseen forces can "convince" some of those elected people in the opposition camp to join BN, then BN might just be able to regain the 2/3 majority in Parliament. Needless to say, it will cost millions to "convince" these people, but what is a few millions to BN, right? And if necessary, they can always make use of the RM100 million meant for Dr Faiz's ride into space. We know that everyone has his price, so crazy things might just happen.
FIVE states lost to the opposition—a few weeks ago, that's something quite unthinkable, really! Not that I am very surprised by Samy's fate in Sungai Siput; but what about Dr Koh and Sharizat? I am sure everyone was very happy with Samy's performance—his fight for the Indian community all these years. But in the end, I guess his people pitied him and wanted him to rest. And what better way to do it on his birthday?
It is something to win against the BN; but it's quite another thing to win big!
And so Pak Lah suddenly finds himself walking on thin ice which is melting very fast as we approach the heat of summer. All eyes are on him, and there will be some difficult questions to answer during the party elections around midyear. Not that the official website which was set up to send in praises for the Prime Minister can be of much use then. Neither can the impeccable self-assessment report cards for the performance of the Government.
It is interesting to note that when some of those hotshot VIPs were interviewed immediately after the election results were out, they said that they will have to analyse why the voters voted opposition. They said that they're shocked by the results; that as far as they were concerned, they had very strong grassroot support. Well, I guess that means their source of information was questionable, huh? It is terrible and dangerous when you are surrounded by too many "yes-men".
So what happens now? Well, to start with, the opposition could start working on keeping their election promises. And of course the BN will try very, very hard not to let that happen. If the opposition can somehow keep their promises, I think we can safely say that the BN will fall one after another like dominoes in the next general election.
I think no one is particularly keen to be in Pak Lah's shoes right now.
6 comments:
Finally, Patience wore thin with quite a few Malaysians.What a surprise.A pleasant one, too.
Take a bow, folks. Lots of cleaning up to do.TV channels were a laughing stock as mobile phones kept all citizens in the know and on time.
A great tsunami swept W Malaysia.
As the pundits start the post mortem, remember the straw that broke the camel's back. Generally, things were building up and the careful Malaysian, weighed all the issues and decided that it WAS time indeed! Forget the Obama-Clinton circus. Yesterday, the greatest show on Earth was in Malaysia!
Nestor Fields
seriously. $ is the issue here. we all know what happen and how it happen. and the damage is done. the damages were done the moment the frogs jumping around. the damages were done when all these frogs still around and unshamefully declare to work for ppl n other bullshit. let's hope and pray that the states tat went off BN's hands are doing good so MORE people here in East Malaysia will get attuned and realize.
i did my part but sandakan is crying.
http://atanck.blogspot.com/2008/03/sandakan-is-crying.html
I applaud you for taking a step to make a difference.
Maybe it's not about having balls after all. All of us know the power BN has on people's mind - heck, they control the most influential apparatus, the media.
But the recent election has proved that people are now slowly standing up to what they believe in. It takes times, it took Malaysians 50 years, but Malaysians have finally started to voice out what they want :)
Mr Fields,
Don't loosen your seatbelt just yet. The show has not ended. There are many questions hanging in the air still.
Will the opposition parties be able to work together?; how much longer can Pak Lah hold on to the hot seat (ignore the loyalty pledges from his supporters—once the ship is sinking, those supporters will be the first ones to abandon ship)?; what's the use of a "post-mortem" for the BN, when they're not willing to see the obvious anyway?...
It will take a while for the aftermath of the tsunami to subside. Stay tuned for more!
CK,
Don't cry, my friend. There is still hope; life goes on.
It was not a total loss—Malaysians have successfully sent a very strong message to the ruling government. Not that they are going to get the message, but we have done our part.
The fight for our rights continues; and the day will come when the rakyat will prevail...
Hopefulpessimist,
The media is no longer a big advantage for the Government. We now have the internet, a very effective medium of communication. Only about 25% of Malaysians have access to the internet, yet it was enough to cause a grandscale tsunami in the political arena last Saturday.
Perhaps now is the time that those people in the Government start working—I mean really work—instead of trying too hard to brainwash the people through the media.
Then again, we shouldn't hope too much for the above to happen. It is a likelier scenario that the Government will spend a lot of time and efforts to block the internet instead. Some things will never change...
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