What we think of the election

by littleboy

With the recent re-landscaping of the Malaysian government, I have been inspired to say a few things on what this means to us, what will change and where we are headed. Who am I and why would you care about what I have to say? The truth is that I am no one. I am an ordinary citizen of the country; young, naive and uninformed. What I have to say lacks deep consideration and analysis. It is based on what I read from our pathetic press, what I hear from my friends who are not unlike myself, and what I instinctively feel from all this input. Why would you care? Because I am like you. I say what I am thinking, and what I am thinking, I share with practically everyone who cares about this country. My assumptions are arrogant, but it is true.

We are all excited by the current results. We all wanted change, and we finally went out to do it. BN has lost its two third majority, and now can’t change our sacred constitution at will. We never really thought they will do anything too drastic anyway, but at least we are relieved of the possibility of this. BN still has simple majority, and we like this. We want the comfort of familiarity, but with more room for debate and attention given to the controversial issues. We don’t expect these issues to be resolved anytime soon, but at least its on the table, and there is pressure for everyone to consider.

As for changes in the ‘opposition’ states, this is what we feel. Although we feel good about braving change we still don’t expect a big difference in progress and development. The average citizen will not likely feel immediate improvement, or any improvement at all. There will be some distribution of wealth now, but only to a limited extent (to the extent of which BN contractors will lose out to non-BN contractors). Even this might be overstating it, as businesses are resilient and flexible. When the ‘people to impress’ changes, they just impress the new people. So we wouldn’t be surprised if our lives don’t change, but we would at least expect everything to be done more transparently. Some of us worry about whether being in an ‘opposition’ state might affect federal government allocations. But we don’t think it will. We know that the federal government (ie BN) will try their best to resist their immature tendancies to punish these ‘ungrateful’ states, because they know if they do, they are basically securing a loss in the next general election. It will also give an excuse for the state governments to make a lot of noise, potentially spreading the dissatisfaction within the party, leading to a further reduction in parliamentary seats. So we are not worried about that. In fact, what we will be worried about is that more projects will be piled into these states, to the dissatisfaction of the people in the government states, leading to a swing to the opposition in the next election. We are worried here because we secretly don’t want the opposition to take over government.

Why don’t we want opposition to take over government? Mainly because we feel there is no suitable opposition yet, and it is not worth investing our countries future with the current opposition. DAP may claim to be progressive and universally representative, but we all know it is basically a Chinese party, and the Malays will not have this. PKR doesn’t seem to have redeeming qualities, except that they stand for everything that is not BN. It is this fact which has secured their success in this election. No one really wants to vote for them, but had to for the lack of a better choice. Anything goes, as long as it is not BN, because we want to teach them a lesson for ignoring our cries these past few years. We do have some respect for the party members. Many of them are respected academics, or successful business people. Many are young idealistic ‘saviours’ of our country, and they might potentially make up a good government.

The problem is that we are a bit reluctant because of their leader. Anwar Ibrahim has made a legendary come back in this election, garnering more hype and press than any other candidate (even though he did not run). He is a brilliant charismatic politician, but unfortunately, that is all he is; a politician. He manages to go down to the level of the people he is addressing, and these changes according to who he is addressing. We love hearing what he promises to do for us, until we realise, he is promising everyone everything. BN has labelled him a chameleon, and we all secretly agree. We don’t know what he is up to, and that makes it dangerous for us all. So we support Anwar because he gives us something to listen to and talk about, but we would rather him not do anything.

I am tempted to carry on telling you what you think. But like most Malaysians, I want to make a difference only when its convenient for me, and carrying on is not convenient for me (as I would rather watch TV). The results of this elections is not an accomplishment by us Malaysians. We just like to say it is.

(the writer finds the KPUM blog dated and dead, and pleads for readers to say something about it, or something at all. more stuff can be read at alittlemalaysian.blogpot.com)