In some bizarre respect the recent Malaysian election – GE13 (because Malaysia likes acronyms) was a scrap between Mr Bean and Mike Tyson. It was a bare-knuckle fight with one protagonist having a boxing glove and one hand tied behind his back. It was a bloody affair which has left the Malaysian middle classes reeling, not just from the dirty punches, but from the Bangladeshi knee to the groin. Winded, counted out but not knocked out, the Malaysia opposition lives to lick its various wounds and fight another day. The battle was lost but the fight remains. The heroes of the day begin training for the ultimate winning battle in five years time.
It was with some slim hope that I logged back into the internet this morning. I hoped that my misgivings and trepidations of yesterday had been wrong, and that right would prevail over might in Malaysia. I was wrong. The Dirty Tricks Brigade had worked their wonders and denied Malaysia of any semblance of democracy. It was Nixon before Watergate and Pol Pot at his bloodiest. It was election carnage with yellow boxes stuffed with votes miraculously appearing from out of an electricity blackout, it was foreign workers purposely shipped in to wrestle the vote from authentic Malaysian voters and it was a black-eye for all who believed that it was going to be any other way.
Malaysian democracy has been severely maimed. Yet its heart beats on. Democracy still lives in the souls and minds of people who wish to change Malaysia away from corruption and nepotism. It is said that from out of defeat comes victory, and to quote the American President Barack Obama “The best is yet to come”, and come it will in the next election, of that I am certain. Now is the time to train. To learn. Now is the period in which Mr Bean can study how to defeat Tyson and avoid ears being bitten, ala Evander Holyfield.
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