In the name of Democracy

My interest in politics waxes and wanes like the moon in the sky at night, with the most poignant moment being the general elections in March 2008, where I spent a good deal of the night (until 5am!!) refreshing the web page where the results were displayed. It was interesting to note that after so long, the ruling coalition (will be known in this post as NF) got it's ass kicked by the opposition (known in this post as PF) by losing five states.

Naturally, the interest waned later on as the whole situation seemed like a very bad soap opera with equally bad actors. The high hopes of making a difference seemed to move further away from reach as *components stated having issues amongst themselves, one of the states was just stolen away in a shocking manner and many other things. A year and a half later, we see the need for a by-election in this place called Hulu Selangor, and while it garnered interest in many ways from a whole bunch of Malaysians, the only thing I did was read a post-mortem done by a twenty something blogger with mild interest.

Translation by another blogger

The 2010 UK elections

To be completely honest, I've never been much of a follower of British politics. I knew/know the Prime Ministers (starting from Margaret Thatcher, only) mostly with the help of a famous fictional diarist known as Adrian Mole, and perhaps some very useless knowledge about them, like the fact that John Major tucked in his shirt into his underwear (see, I said it was useless knowledge)

I suppose the interest began from a talk show on the radio where a political analyst was interviewed and the results of the elections was categorised as a marriage of convenience between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. That, and the fact that the Labour had been denied victory after 13 years. It all seems a bit too similar to what's been happening here... one major party (NF) that always seems to win no matter what, and the opposition who has to bend their rules and even ideologies to deny the ruling party an assured victory.  Besides both countries are democratic with a Monarchy (although we didn't have a gorgeous princess who wanted to find herself) At least that is how I see it. Somehow, the results of the UK elections proves that there is still hope.

Sibu, Sarawak

Sarawak in East Malaysia has always been the stronghold of NF. Most people thought that there was not much hope for the PF to pave their way in there. Turns out they were mistaken. PF won, with a small majority, but a win is a win, regardless of the majority. There is hope!