The TRUTH

Malaysia is on a Voyage to Freedom. Political freedom, social freedom and economic freedom. With the recent election on 8th March 2008, the "peoples' power" has managed to express itself quite loudly and the Ruling Elite (Barisan National - BN) is shaken to the core. Party PAS (Islamic Party) has managed to come to terms with the conditions on the ground and the reality of things in Malaysia. They have decided to accomodate and be accomodated by DAP ( a secular Party) and PKR (multiethnic party) and build on common grounds and set aside grounds which are peculiar to each party. That is an excellent start, I must add.

According to what we can gather from various sources, the BN rule had been very autocratic and selfserving. They managed to hoodwinked the populace for the past half a century or so by giving them the "left overs" while they ( the BN) amass the most. The PAS+PKR+DAP "Joint venture" in supporting the "deprived" population have worked to such an extent that they managed (to their own amazement) to take control five States: Kelantan, Penang, Kedah, Perak and Selangor.

The question now for the BN is how can they recover control of these States. Short of dismantling the organisational framework for the BN, it is quite a monumental task at turning the clock back (to retake political control) but if PAS can accomodate D AP (and be accomodated by DAP), I see no reason that the same formula be adopted by BN. Let us see within the next six months how things develop.

The discouraging thing we note now is the Federal Cabinet line up: Mohamad bin Mohd. Taib, a known character of questionable honesty; Sharizat who lost is made Special Advisor to the PM and two other UMNO stalwarts made Senators and appointed as Ministers. I am sure the PM has his own private agenda in doing that.

The obvious benefit of the current trends is that we will be coming to terms for a two patry system and that is good.