I was contemplating what title to use for this entry. Hence, I put both. “Political Tsunami” was today’s Star paper’s headline but it was originated from DAP veteran, Lim Kit Siang on his blog.

I usually don’t really care about politics in my country, although I know what’s happening. Yesterday was the Malaysia’s 12th General Election and also the first time I voted.

Most of you may already know since it’s all over the papers, CNN, Bloomberg and even Wikipedia. The national coalition, Barisan Nasional, can still form a government but they lost 5 states to the opposition parties. The opposition parties also denied BN their 2/3 majorities in the parliament, winning 82 seats. This is really a set back to the BN.

In my area, Lembah Pantai, incumbent Sharizat was going against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s daughter, Nurul Izzah and Nurul won. It was really unexpected. Works minister, Sami Velu also lost his seat. Koh Tsu Koon lost his CM-ship in Penang. Yesterday was really a blow to the BN.

My opinion on this election was, the internet played a huge role. HUGE HUGE ROLE. I keep telling everyone I meet. in 2004, the Internet penetration rate wasn’t as high and blogs were not as popular.

The Malaysian media are all owned by the BN/government and in the past 2 weeks, numerous pages in the newspapers were used as BN’s advertisements. TV stations kept airing BN’s stuff. All the opposition could do is just through the Internet, and it worked.

Jeff Ooi, Malaysia’s most influential blogger, won the Jelutong seat in Penang for DAP. Teresa Kok had the highest number of majority in Seputeh (where I used to stay) with a majority of 36,000 votes! These people have blogs that are being read by the people, a lot of people.

My point is, the people are now more educated at the country’s current situation through the internet, through the bloggers especially. People like Jeff Ooi really made an effort to present facts with evidence to the public.

I enjoy reading pinkpau’s entry on the election. I foresee another blogger turn politician in the making.

Change is coming guys, lets hope for a better future!

Quoting pinkpau, “IT IS A GOOD DAY!”