Parliament has been dissolved, paving the way for the much-awaited general elections. Malaysians have been told often to use the proper channels to show their feelings. Now is the time to do so. Now we have the rare opportunity to tell the BN-led government what we really think about its policies, performance, leadership quality, macro and micro management of the country’s economy and other related issues. We can tell them our opinion by voting for or against BN.

The people - in particular, the voters - are really the bosses now, since they are the ones who will decide which party will rule for the next five years. That is why we saw so many promises being made recently and why so many new projects are being announced.

Do not be fooled by all these promises and threats. Take whatever is given by BN now, but be sure you vote for change this time. By giving us candy for our favour and threatening us with a cane if we do not listen to them, the BN is treating us like children.

All the while they were waving the keris and threatening us, declaring that Umno can rule on its own and they completely forgot about us. They completely forgot about the Suqui memorandum submitted by the Chinese community a decade ago. Now, judges are being bought for favorable rulings and bodies are being snatched before funerals without any proper recourse available for the families. Even 100-year-old temples are being destroyed with flimsy excuses while those who stand for community rights are being detained under the ISA. The list goes on.

And yet the BN wants a two-thirds majority claiming that everyone is happy with their performance. If we do not stop the rot now, Malaysia may eventually end up like some African Third World country.

After 50 years in power, the ruling elites have become overconfident, arrogant, corrupt, irresponsible and uncaring towards the majority of Malaysians, irrespective of race, religion or culture. This is mainly because of the almost unbroken two-thirds majority rule the BN has had over Parliament. Malaysians continue to vote them in, almost blindly.

We should remember that ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ That is why in a parliamentary democracy, the party that wins the majority of seats rules and the others remain in the Parliament as opposition MPs. As long as the ruling party has more than 50 percent of the seats, they can function effectively as the government.

The only thing they cannot do is amend the constitution for which they need a two-thirds majority. Any amendment to the constitution requires close scrutiny by the opposition before it can be passed. This is the reason it is not advisable to give a two-thirds majority to the ruling party.

Malaysians should take this opportunity to vote in 80 to 90 opposition members of Parliament. Give them the chance to show us how effectively they can work together in the opposition, so that we can give them a chance to be the ruling party in future general elections if BN does not perform to our expectations.

There are those who often ask the silly question: what has the opposition done? Only the BN can bring development, they claim. These people do not understand the function of a parliamentary democracy. The majority parties rule and use the people's money to carry out development work. The BN does not use its own money and resources to bring about development. It is the public's money they are using.

The opposition MPs provide the ‘check and balance’ for the government. There is no provision in our democracy that allows the opposition to use public money for development. When you have given 90 percent of the seats to the ruling party, there is hardly any ‘check and balance’ in the system.

Probably, this may be last time it will be possible to reduce the BN’s two-thirds majority. Next time around, the further redrawing of electoral boundaries would have taken place with the help of the BN-friendly Election Commission.

As a result, it will become more difficult to elect enough non-BN MPs to reduce the BN’s two-thirds majority. Vote for the opposition in this general election and start making change now.