After letting their voices heard at the ballot boxes on the March 8, 2008, millions of concerned Malaysians were glued to their TVs and PCs, following enthusiastically the election results through the entire evening and the wee hours of the next day. Many were also staying up till dawn while celebrating as if Malaysia had just qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals!

When the euphoria of such a historical moment slowly dissipated, collectively we saw a new dawn for our country.

After all, like the famous Malaysian saying goes, "it is not every Sunday" that the ruling Umno/BN has been denied the coveted 2/3 majority in Parliament and lost another four important states from Kedah straight down to Selangor (while failed for the umpteenth time to regain Kelantan). In physical terms, Umno/BN has been dealt a bloody nose and surely, a more prominent black eye than Anwar Ibrahim's 'self-inflicted' one a decade earlier.

For a moment, some Malaysians not merely hoped but even optimistically expected change to take place within the ruling coalition. We thought then, "Surely this time they cannot arrogantly ignore our voices any longer!"

Eighteen months down the road, we have been proven half right, half wrong. Half right because they did change but half wrong because they changed for the worse!

While I am tempted to list down all their shenanigans to date, suffice it to say, the Umno/BN government has become so desperate in hanging on to their power by all foul means imaginable.

We came to a damning realisation that the "political tsunami" that swept the nation on 308 is in fact far from sufficient! What then will we need in the next general election in order to steer our beloved nation away from the path of destruction, and by extension to safeguard our future and that of our children?

Simply put, we will need a "political revolution". No, not the physical kind for Gandhi advocated Ahimsa (non-violence), which the great Mahatma had decreed to be "as old as the hills". What we will need, or more precisely the other half of Malaysian voters who still voted for Umno/BN will need, is a "mental revolution".

These Malaysians will need to be convinced that "Voting for change to a fair, competent, accountable and transparent government is the righteous thing to do than voting for stability by keeping an incompetent, corrupt, arrogant and racist government in power".

The Umno/BN government has time and again failed us and with that, lost all its moral legitimacy to govern us. It has failed, or more correctly, refused to understand the true meaning of democracy. What they have been doing is (ab)using the democratic mandate given to them by unfairly and cruelly suppressing the rights and freedoms of the very people who put them on the seat of power. The democracy they are practising is what I call a "tyrannical democracy" - if ever this terminology makes any sense to begin with.

Pakatan Rakyat is not without its weaknesses and the main one by consensus is the lack of formal partnership and a common platform. Zaid Ibrahim has been tasked to look specifically into these areas and although he is facing some glitches, I believe he will eventually come up with a viable solution. Being a new entity, Pakatan is bound to learn from its own mistakes as well as from others.

There are also a few "wolves in sheep's clothing" in the names of Hasan Ali, Zulkifli Noordin, Nasaruddin Isa and S Manikavasagam (they collectively deserve to feature in another article on another day). These are Pakatan's people representatives whom many Malaysians (me included) do not wish to see as candidates again in future elections.

The question for us is not whether we can place our trusts in Pakatan but whether we can afford not to!