08.05.13 - Post GE13

Majority of Malaysians were devastated after 05.05.13

Many struggled to get back to daily routine, constantly asking themselves...so, what now? Do we carry on with life as if nothing had happened? Do we accept this as a closure? Or do we keep on fighting?

Despite numerous rubbish reports and statements made by some irresponsible parties...we remained calm and sensible.

Into the 3rd day, I see most friends had changed their FB profile pictures to new ones.  I see it as a positive sign..we are moving on.  We cannot stay in darkness for too long.  Forward is the only way to go.

I quote a friend.. "I love Malaysia (and I didn't know until this lately)"

08.05.13 Malaysians united to be even more stronger and determined to demand for what we believe in.

08.05.13 will be a day Malaysians (may be even the world) will remember for life.

Photo Credit : Facebook Page of  1000000 People Request for the Whole Cabinet to Resign

Estimated at least 50,000 braved the rain and heavy traffic on a busy Wednesday evening.  Many had to walk as far as 12km or more to reach the stadium.  Many were not able to enter the stadium. Yet, it was a merry atmosphere.  Apparently, people just wind down their windows and chatted away.

Opposition leaders arrived in motorcycles instead of fancy cars and escorts.




The expressway was jam packed.  It's now 1.30am, I believe many (including one or more prominent Member of Parliaments) are still on their way back. .

There were no riots.  A show of strong unity and solidarity by civilised Malaysians.

I love you all.  You're so cool!


I'm so proud to be a Malaysian.


Read more HERE

06.05.13 - Post GE13

It was a sad sad day for us in Malaysia.

We had high hopes.  It seemed possible.  May be the unofficial results mislead us?  May be the opposition were being too ambitious...and we got overly excited.

But..how could this be merely our imagination?

Final Rally on the eve of GE13

(Source: Facebook Page of "1,000,000 Chinese don't want MCA to represent Chinese")

At around midnight everyone were still in high hopes.  About 15 mins past midnight, a friend whatsapp-ed to say that it wasn't looking good at all, based on sources she had on the ground.  Within a few messages exchange the official numbers suddenly moved and jumped by double digits.

It couldn't be...everyone was stunned.

Darkness invaded my facebook within minutes. Malaysia mourns...

Thousands of Malaysia Facebookers changed their profile picture to BLACK

I didn't expect myself to be affected so badly.  Retweeted my last tweet (reluctantly) for the night as follows :

Retweeted FMT News (@fmtoday):

GE13: Official: BN has 95 parliamentary seats as at 12.20am. Needs 17 more for a simple majority

I logged off and turned to Candy Crush to calm myself down.

I think I finally dozed off around 2am..after several rounds of switching between Candy Crush, Twitter and Facebook.

Facebook was even more gloomy in the morning when more friends changed their profile picture.  So touching and yet saddening.  We should be celebrating if not for.....damn it..

I learnt a new acronym though - P.K.H.K.C from my cousin's status - a nice guy who is normally composed and quiet both in person and in Facebook.

It's a series of chinese vulgar words...go figure :D


Then..a friend shared this:



I cried.

Read the unbias report from BBC News - HERE

Ceramah

I've voted in at least 3 or 4 elections so far. (Right, now you know my age!)

In the first two experience, I, and I guess same as everyone else, was very much indifferent.  The opposition wasn't strong and everyone didn't think there's a need or rather chance to change things.

Internet access was limited.  There were no smart phones.  There were no you tubes.  No twitter.  No Facebook.

I believe the whole social media and internet landscape erupted in 2006-7.  Twitter, Facebook, Blogs became one of the main information sources for various matters, politics inclusive.

Still, during the 2008 elections, I didn't pay much attention to political news.  There wasn't much sharing back then.  I wasn't into you tube viewing either.
Mainstream media was still pretty much the main exposure, for me at least.  I didn't bother about attending talks (ceramah) either.

BUT. I did change my choice of vote.  Not much discussion about it, I decided to 'try'to vote for a change.  And apparently, everyone else (many) did the same.  Hence, in 2008 a political tsunami happened in Malaysia.

Only after the elections, a friend told me that throughout the campaign season people were very supportive in attending ceramahs (talks/ diagous) by the opposition.  Youtube was flooded with video clips of huge crowd rallying for the speakers, I was told.

The opposition took full advantage of the momentum created in 2008 and continued to ride on the internet and social media platform for the next five years.  Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Live stream became a very important source of information.

More and more people were exposed to issues that we've never pay attention to before ..simply because no one was given access to share in mainstream media.


This time around, almost everyone I know had attended at least one live ceramah.  Our facebook feed is of course flooded with video clipsof ceramahs around the country and many other information.

So, as mentioned in previous post..me too was caught up watching ceramah via you tube videos.

And thanks to technology..we can even watch direct from the TV.

So, being a 'blogger' I've gotta have at least one post with live ceramah pictures, kan?

This is considered the smaller version relative to those with bigger names attending.
Still...look at the crowd!  This is just a portion of them.
Many more sitting at bus stops.  By the side walks. etc.

Hawkers taking advantage of the crowd.  It was like a carnival.

Traffic jam in a residential road at 9pm.

So..okay la..I think I've watched enough you tubes. "Attended" a ceramah.  

Let's pray for a safe and smooth  election on 05.05.13

Join us at : https://www.facebook.com/JomDoa

05.05.13

This coming Sunday, is a very very important and exciting day for Malaysia.  Probably the most exciting ever since independence.

A gym-mate at the regular Sunday class that I go to said.."ok..I won't be coming next week, hope it will be a new M'sia when we meet the following Sunday"

Just realised I've not posted much about political issues here despite all the hype.  Well, there's been so much, I didn't think I'd need to say anything.

In case you think I don't care, I do.  Hence, I'm taking time-off from my work to do this post.

I've been following posts and tweets of selected parties and politicians.  For several nights, I was very close to falling asleep, and ended up watching ceramah (talks) online.

I have short attention span on these kind of serious matters, I'm quite surprise myself that I could actually stay awake in the middle of the night listening to these talks.




Tony Pua at Taman Megah




Hannah Yeoh at Gasing





And this .. I don't understand Mandarin very well, but this is so hilarious yet informative.




A friend forwarded this to me...source unknown.

I'm still trying to get my head around this..

The Opposition stated that they need a comfortable 125 parliament seats to be able to take over.

Found another article from Malaysia Chronicle that had this analysis of possible outcome of GE13:

1.     Popular Vote Tie – If an equal number of voters vote for both sides, the popular vote will be tied at 50%-50%. A BN victory, because they will capture 133 seats versus 89 for PR. (How does this happen? GERRYMANDERING.)

2.     5% PR win – If PR has 5% more voters than BN, they irrationally will still lose the election. (Isn’t democracy about getting more votes than the other guy? Nope, not in the cheat-prone and antiquated British FPTP democracy.) BN will get 118 seats versus 104 for PR.

3.     10% PR win – But if PR gets 10% more voters, then there will be a reversal. The opposition will capture Parliament for the first time in history. PR will now get 119 seats vs 103 for BN.