COMMENT Even if PKR’s Zaid Ibrahim does not win today’s parliamentary by-election in Hulu Selangor, Pakatan Rakyat’s new politics of national salvation has triumphed over BN’s old politics of the 3M’s - money, machinery and media.

The evidence for that was the massive crowd that gathered at the Kuala Kubu Bharu Stadium last night for Pakatan’s final wind-up rally: it was estimated by some up to 30,000 strong, with a considerable proportion from outside the vicinity of the constituency, composed of all races and well behaved, raging in age from young to old, disciplined in the way they parked their vehicles, readily obedient to the emcee’s instructions to keep order, and lapping up the oratorical fare with brio.

How does the size of a crowd at a political rally and its deportment – from how it parks its vehicles to the way it files into the venue and departs from it – tell of its psyche and future behaviour?