A sprinkle of Malaysian Politics

Back in the day, when the ruling government ruled the country with a firm grip just as the church ruled the European nations during the dark ages, the people were ill-informed. Daily manipulated news and doctored articles were the mainstay means of getting informed of the ins and outs of the small yam-shaped nation. With no other alternate source of information available, one must not be able to even imagine another variation to what’s being published daily. One must not even be able to imagine that it was falsified news. One must simply play right into the puppeteering fingers of the ruling party, simply because they weren’t even aware in the slightest way, brainwashed and mindless.

Political agendas, incited racial hatreds, divide and conquer. The ruling government were all but too smart for the mass, to even employ the great Sun Tzu’s stratagems against the people. Having full control on the news media had allowed hidden agendas to be simply a guise in plain view; whereby the truth was hidden behind sprinkles of chili powder, spicy enough to even anger the most tolerable of palates in the country as a diversion tactic. Gone were the days where the multinational, multi-ethnic and multicultural love between one Malaysian to the other, thanks to the heavy hand and ploys designed to divide the nation.

Malaysia had been, and still is ruled by the same party until today. For over 50 years of independence, the same political party still holds a firm grip in authority. However, as technology begins to develop in ways we could not have imagined in the past, things starts look grim for the ruling party.

Enter the internet.

With an alternate source of information that appeared, which was far from the grasps of control by the government, free press and news were finally real in the nation. The people began to educate themselves, began to read, began to dissect information, began to doubt, began to revolt.

The hideous crimes committed by the government were but all laid bare to the plain viewing of the mass. Obvious lies on old mainstream media was noted, with the stark difference of what’s reported online. Racial cards, religious cards, the entire poker hand of the government were laid bare to the eyes of the people. We were prepared, we know what’s being played, and equally aware of all the shenanigans that occurred in the past.

The internet played a huge role especially, during the last general election. Even though the resulting votes lead to a slight majority in favor of the opposition party, underhanded tactics were strewn all across polling day which resulted to a win by the ruling party. However, it was all recorded and documented online thanks to the ever vigilant yet savvy internet users of Malaysia.

The indelible ink issue (whereby voters are marked with indelible ink when they have voted, turns out to be delible), the ghost voters (voters who were long dead or non-existent), non-citizen voters (Bangladeshi workers given temporary citizenship and paid to vote for the ruling government), gerrymandering (whereby just enough voters were needed to win was allocated onto specific territories in order to achieve majority state wins), ‘black magic’ (as coined by Malaysians to refer to the power outage during the ballot counting process which the counters had to recount the total votes when the opposition was winning, while convoys of police patrol cars entered the building with more voting ballot bags sneakily) were prime examples and the most talked topic during the last general election.

Sure, the breakthrough of internet seemed insufficient to break past the age-old stronghold of the ruling party the last election due to foul play. But nevertheless, the people are still empowered and made more aware. We shall persevere and await for the next general election, hopefully able to deal the final blow to the corrupt weakening party.

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