Why the local political scene is Like a Soap Opera with Bad Actors

If you were to go back about 15 years ago and asked anyone on the streets about the political situation in Malaysia, you might have just received a shrug, and perhaps if the person you asked was friendly enough, you'd get a small conversation on how boring it was. The conversation would have ended there, because there wouldn't have been much else to say. You might have even gone for coffee and discussed the situation (war) in the Balkans instead.

Fast forward to 15 years later, almost anyone can tell you about the exciting things that happen almost every single day, from catfights to uncouth behaviour. From arrests and allegations, ridiculous road blocks that cause massive traffic jams, to the news of an unlikely coalition which if it ever became likely would crush about slightly more than 1/3 of the people to little crumbling pieces of gingerbread men/women. In fact, at the rate things were going just about two weeks ago, you'd think that the socio-political websites would have been flooded with exciting articles. Funnily enough, some of them thought that it was too much, and gave up on giving each drama their 2 cents worth! With all these drama, why shouldn't we liken the situation to that we see in soap operas? Even the economy has dropped a little due to the frightened foreign investors (or so they say). (Yes, the economy has dropped, banks are being a pain in the ass and maybe the investors are a bit scared - who wouldn't be if they had to read soap opera-esque carefully spinned stories in the papers every day?)

Anyway, soap opera or not, and good acting or otherwise, the local political scene has just turned interesting and may stay that way for some time!