The past 24 hours has been surreal for many Malaysians.
On the 9th of May 2018, millions of Malaysians flocked to the polling stations throughout the country to exercise their voting rights for the 14th National General Election. As the polling time closed at 5pm, the entire nation collectively held their breaths as they braved for another term under the incumbent government led by the Barisan Nasional (National Front) party.
Hours rolled by, during which rumors of violent encounters between voters and law enforcements, power blackouts at the polling stations and plenty more discomforting news of unrest were spreaded in various social medias.
The official results started coming in from 11pm. On the state level, some have stayed put with their current governments, some changed hands in tightly fought battles, but the ones that raised eyebrows were the traditionally BN strongholds states that went to the opposition by enormous margins.
Still, nothing quite prepared the nation for the results of the parliament seat winners : For the first time in 61 years, since our country achieved independence in 1957, BN lost the majority to the opposition. The allliance of the opposition parties, Pakatan Harapan (Coalition of Hope), for the first time ever, will form the Malaysia Federal government.
This is an unprecedented outcome that many thought would never happen in their lifetime, but it did. What followed was a flurry of activities to transfer the power to the new governemt and appoint a new Prime Minister. There was a lot of delays due to the unprecedented nature of this event, fueling more speculation. But as of 10pm on the 10th of May, Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohammad, who served as the Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003 under the BN banner, and came out of retirement to contest under the opposition flag, is once again the Prime Minister of Malaysia at the age of 93, possibly the oldest Premiere in the world.
Whatever it is some might think of the personalities leading the new government, once cannot deny that this is a major leap for the Malaysia politics. Malaysians have seen the power of the ballot, the proof of democracy at work. We reminded the politicians that it is the people who is in power, not some corrupt leader who seek to milk the country dry.
We have finally matured as a people and as a country. I was once convinced that if the opposition win, there will be riots in the streets, but so far I have been proven wrong. Most Malaysians have finally see past the racial divide that the BN government seeked to maintain for their own benefit. There was never a "Chinese tsunami" like the BN government accused of in the past, but today there was definitely a "People's tsunami" who steamrolled through the country, and we hope those elected officials will not soon forget.
Well done, Malaysia.
