The huge landslide BN victory bears testimony to the enormous faith invested by the rakyat in Pak Lah.

The average man in the street did not vote for BN per se. He voted for Pak Lah's reputation for fairness, decency and integrity. He voted for Pak Lah's agenda for clean, caring and efficient government.

Many voters did not know who their area BN or BA representatives were. Many did not care if their representatives were clean or corrupt, good or bad.

They voted for Pak Lah.

There is a pervasive belief amongst Malaysians that although Pak Lah's political vision may be overwhelmingly popular with the voters, such a vision would not be as well received amongst the fabulously rich and powerful members of the BN political elite.

Many of the more educated Malaysian voters self-consciously came to the polls in support of Pak Lah out of concern that his own BN party elites may take every opportunity to frustrate Pak Lah's agenda if he is not given a huge and overwhelming mandate before the next Umno general assembly.

Many Malaysians voted on the premise of Pak Lah's promise - a unique promise not heard for over 20 years in Malaysia - that is, that Pak Lah would protect us from the excesses and corruption of our own professional politicians.

For many years, we had agreed to hold our noses and bear with the odour of cronyism, and the stench of corruption, and vote for BN anyway.

The Anwar trial put an end to that consensus.

Much of the Malaysian voting public decided it had had enough of force and fraud in politics, and voted for the opposition in 1999. In 1999 it was arguably the opposition that stood for decency, fairness and honesty in the eyes of the general public.

Many Malaysians desperately want to believe that Pak Lah will bring a renewed commitment to the practice of ethical politics and good governance.

I believe this to be the single biggest reason for BN's phenomenal turnaround this time around at the polls as compared to 1999.

The task that Pak Lah now faces in bringing his political and social vision to fruition is gargantuan.

The prayers of an entire nation go with him.