A Brief Update

Last weekend I made it back to Malaysia from my overseas trip to vote I flew from Abu Dhabi at an unreasonable time of 3.00 am and reached KLIA at 2.15 pm, Saturday. I had to wait almost 20 minutes to get a taxi. On my way home, the main road of my kampung (village) was festooned with posters and banners. As usual, the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN) had more posters than the perennially cash poor opposition parties. I had a shower, rest and rushed through my lunch and took the 5 minutes drive to the polling station. I made it to the polling station at 4.30pm, 30 minutes before the closing.

The BN supporters had a tent equipped with several lap tops. PAS, one of the opposition party also had a tent with one lap top. Unlike last year, the BN supporters were less boisterous, perhaps sensing the general mood against the BN. In less than 10 minutes, I had casted my votes for the candidate standing for the Selangor state assembly (Batu Tiga) and parliamentary seat (Shah Alam).

The counting of votes started after 5.00 pm. I stayed up until 3.30 am to watch the results on the TV. The outcome was a massive swing against the BN with the opposition parties for only the 2nd time in 40 years was able to deny BN 2/3 of seats in the Parliament. To top it all, five states will be ruled by opposition parties. I have to say it was a most satisfying feeling that my one vote had contributed towards a historic result.

Over the next four to five years, I hope that with a stronger opposition to BN, there will be greater transparency, improved governance and less racial based policies in Malaysia.

Alas, my return is very short. Tomorrow (Tuesday) I am going overseas again to three countries; Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and United Arab Emirates. I will be back on 27 March, three days before the KL International marathon.