Today Malaysians voted in the general election. It was quite interesting to follow the results, to see who have lost and who have suddenly appeared out of the blue. This supreme form of democratic process is, although can be considered to have reached acceptable maturity and grassroots reach in Malaysia, can still be dogged by all sort of complex and side issues - ethnic, religious, wealth gap, personal, dynastic clan and so on. So not only it is an interesting and just process to choose a government but more often than not the process is coloured with all sort of ‘interesting’ sideshows.
This is the 12th general election since the first one was held in 1959. The election this time involves 222 parliamentary and 505 state assembly seats. This time BN, the ruling party, only won 135 compare to 198 seats four years ago, while the opposition won 82 compare to just 20 seats last time around. The same story with the state assembly where the opposition quadrupled their seats from 51 to 195. Apart from Kelantan, the opposition won 4 more states - Selangor, Perak, Kedah and Penang. It’s been a wind of change.Today we went to a Malaysian Toko (see photos) to pick up our order. This toko is closing down; the shop owner is asking a ridiculous high amount of money as lump sum for extending the rental. So after two years in the business, Zahari and Kak Noriah are closing their shop and business will finally cease on 15th March.
