comment I was in a bookstore in Petaling Jaya on the evening of March 8, 2008, when incredulous news trickled in via SMS and was whispered all round - that election history was being made.

That morning, I had voted at the polling station in the Bukit Damansara school where, surprisingly, there was rather muted activity. I had remarked to my wife that there was a strange atmosphere about it all.