General Erection 2008

As every living and moderately non-apathic Malaysian will know, we went to the ballot boxes earlier yesterday to vote for a bunch of strangers who we see once every four years in poster to well, drive the course of this country's well-being for four years or so.

This is of course, my first time of voting. I've missed the boat four years ago because I simply didn't care, as what would one vote do against the mighty propaganda machine of the Libra party? This time however, things changed. Given the amount of bullshit and idiocy presented in front of me week in and week out directly (un)live from the parliament, I guess along with million of others, something had to be done. I paid attention to politics :O

Certainly, friends help. I've talked about politics with my friends this week alone more than I have mustered my other years combined. And it is good. Sad to say there were some of the more sarcastic ones, "wah, good citizen, register for vote hor.." while it is not a law, the very least that you have looked and considered your options would be well, sad to say there were resign to Libra winning it over the moons and the rockets, which I doubt is ever a good stance to take in the first place.

Given the results that I've know so far, they have lost and lost bad. Penang, Selangor, Perak, Kedah, Kelantan .. some of it former strongholds of the Libra team. And some old horses is bowing out as well, our grand old Samy Vellu, the longest serving minister, being the biggest casualty. Behind followed Koh Tsu Koon, the Chief Minister of Penang, heck even another fellow blogger, Jeff Ooi, got in ahead of him.

This perhaps is the biggest lost ever suffered by the party, seeing they had almost over 90% majority last time around and thankfully the only reason they haven't lost the majority this time around is because the opposition could not field enough candidates rather than they could not wrestle it away. The sad thing about all this is that, come Monday, when they group up and discuss how did they lose so badly, the reasons will be nothing closer to the truth. Expect the usual, "they voted with feelings, not head" "phantom votes!" or "opposition used underhand tactics"..

Why did they lose though? Few reasons really, such as:

1) Older generations protesting the increase of everything but their sex life and penis length.
2) Younger generations protesting the decrease of income the receive for parents due to reason #1
3) Young voters incensed at the idiocy and corruption displayed by the government week in and week out as shown on YouTube.
4) Young voters
5) are not dumb and chained by the traditional media

Control all the usual media you want (go ahead, collect last weeks newspapers till yesterdays and read, you'd see we astonishingly have NO crime. Nop, no rape cases, no child missing, no robbery, no car accidents or bus falling down cliffs) but you can't control the internet. The last time they did, (arresting a few bloggers under ISA), they end up getting one of those arrested for blogging into parliament, so good going there Leroy.

This could be a new beginning for Malaysia, where we have seen another triumph for the free media (the Lingam case would have NEVER gotten any press if not for youtube) and how the youths have made a change. For the good or worst? We'll have four years to find out, I can only hope by that time, I would actually know the candidates I'm voting for.

Joke of the day:

When asked whether the massive lost by BN was a vote of no confidence on the government, he (PM Badawi) said, "I don't see it that way."

Obviously not, we merely hated the logo and color of the flag. It does not go well with orange.