COMMENT | Finally, at long last, after rather testing circumstances which saw a kleptocratic government refusing to stand down despite overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing, the people – you and me and everyone else – created history of the right kind when they kicked out the party which holds the world record for the number of years of being in continuous power.

Never before had BN and its predecessors lost an election, since the time when they were first held in Malaya in 1955 ahead of independence in 1957. The same party had stayed in power uninterrupted for 61 years.

Umno-led BN, headed by Najib Abdul Razak, lost power to opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan led by Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in league with the opposition in Sabah and Sarawak.

The victory was especially sweet, because PAS under Abdul Hadi Awang had abandoned the opposition coalition which it had been part of for over 10 years. Many, including me, felt with three-cornered fights all over the peninsula it would be an uphill task for the opposition.

Indeed it was, but the confluence of a number of things led to a decisive victory by the opposition this time, unexpected even by those who foresaw victory for the margin by which the battle was won.

The entire campaign was galvanised by the surprise entry of Mahathir into the fray on the side of the opposition, with the consent of jailed PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim and his wife and children. If all goes well, Mahathir will be sworn in as prime minister, and Anwar’s wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as deputy prime minister.

For Anwar, there can be no better present than that awaiting him when he is released from prison on June 8, with a tacit understanding that he will take over from Mahathir when all the procedural matters such as a pardon are taken care of.

A public already incensed by rising prices on top of the long-running 1MDB scandal, the biggest kleptocracy the world has ever seen, began to increasingly express its unhappiness. It was further upset by an erosion of all checks and balances against theft by government aggravated by questionable deals made and contracts signed which had the potential of pawning the future of the country.

I wondered, as others did, whether the Malaysian public will finally have the gumption to throw this corrupt, controlling, incompetent government. I knew the urban votes were sealed up but no one seemed to have a handle on what the rural community thought about all this.

“I never thought I would see the day this government was thrown out,” Malaysiakini’s co-founder and editor-in-chief Steven Gan said over coffee and a late dinner early this morning.

But it turned out that the public was indeed prepared to say 'enough is enough' to this government. Thus we, the Malaysian public, have regained our pride and our faith in ourselves and each other. Now we can look forward to ushering in an era of change or ubah! So congratulate yourselves Malaysians and pat yourselves on your backs – you bloody well deserve it.

More than anything or anyone else, it was you Malaysians who brought about the change in the process adopting social media to get news, analysis and information you would never have got from the mainstream publications and using social media to communicate with each other and pass the information around.

Shame on EC

This is your victory and you have clearly given the message to all politicians that they can no longer take you for granted and there is limit to what you will take from them. Now hopefully, Harapan will take heed of what you want, and it is up to you to tell them what that is.

Ubah or change is the word and there is much that needs to be done soon. You can bask in the glory of your victory now and take some time to let things sink in but the work will soon have to begin now for the rakyat and for Harapan.

Top of the list will have to be liberalising the flow of information, transparency, accountability and good governance. The institutions that are needed for checks and balances of the executive have to be restored, and the election processes must be revamped so that the will of the public cannot be thwarted in the future, and that all Malaysians, no matter where they live, have equal say in who will rule on their behalf.

So soon after the elections the spotlight will, of course, fall on the disgraceful performance of Elections Commission chief Mohd Hashim Abdullah, who dismissed calls for an extension past the 5pm deadline due to voters not being able to cast their ballots.

"We will close at 5pm for those not in the voting room," he said in an interview with RTM1.

According to Hashim, this was because the 5pm closing time had been gazetted and votes cast past that time can be challenged in court to the detriment of certain parties. He added that this is the reason EC advised people to come out to vote as early as possible.

Couldn’t more polling stations have been allotted considering that these constituencies were highly gerrymandered to increase their numbers?

And then almost all overseas ballot papers were delivered too late. Was this deliberate or was it incompetence? Either way this man must go, considering all the other clearly one-sided decisions in favour of BN such as redelineation, the midweek polling day, the delay in signing Form 14 to certify counting and so on.

There is so much more to do besides reforming the EC, but for now to bask in the victory is appropriate. We are right to hope that this epoch-making event will lead the country to greater freedom, prosperity, wellbeing and happiness for all of us. That requires all of us and Harapan to do the needful in the coming years.

Again, congratulations Malaysians.

P GUNASEGARAM says that sometimes not taking a chance is to lose an opportunity. E-mail: t.p.guna@gmail.com. 

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.