Malaysian Decides 2008

The election result is (almost) out, with Barisan National winning 137 seats versus the opposition 82 in the parliament. And overall, BN won 309 state seats over 192 by the opposition and 1 independent contestant.

This is a shocking result to both the Barisan National and the opposition. BN suffers a big lost in the election, which even many of the current minister were ousted. And new star like Jeff Ooi, the blogger turn politician and many other opposition contestant won with a beautiful results.

It is well known that there is what was called phantom voters, which refers to people who didn't turn up for voting and yet he is voted. These phantom voters could be deceased, overseas, or just don't want to turn up to vote. Over the news, there is even voters that have fake identity card numbers.

So what is the implication of this? I would say, the opposition really won a very very tough competition and they won really BIG this time. Considering that there is phantom voters and possibly under table work to alter or influence votes, the oppositions have to work double hard to win the bid. And we saw now, perhaps it is too many votes, which it couldn't be faked out to change the result this time for the BN. There was saying that when the opposition seems to be winning, the committee will take another "backup" voter box and count it in, which then BN won eventually. Even the strategy of redrawing the area of certain state territory couldn't save BN for the bid this time.

So after all, the opposition is now in control of 5 of the major states in the country, namely Penang, Selangor, Perak, Kelantan and Kedah. And also occupied 1/3 of the parliament seats. I would look forward to changes that the new parliament and state government made to Penang and Selangor, where foreign investments are likely to have some influence after the election.

Anyway, it is still too early to say how's the future of Malaysia will be, but this is a good new start, and yet, a small step in the very long journey.

I do hope Malaysia really can live up to its slogan --- "Malaysia Boleh!"