Voters realise their formidable power

THIS is a new dawn for Malaysia. After 51 years, Malaysians have a new political coalition in power.

I have always advocated the two-party system and the importance of denying any ruling party the two-thirds majority in Parliament.

With this majority, the Constitution can be changed and this is surely a dangerous thing for one party to be able to do so.

I have seen Barisan Nasional lose its twothirds majority twice, in 2008 and 2013. Barisan also lost the popular vote in 2013. These gave me hope that change was possible but I never expected to see Barisan not winning a general election.

The political coalition that swept into power on Wednesday night is known as “Harapan” – hope. I’m sure many of the rakyat, like me, had hoped for change. But I don’t think anyone, and certainly not me, realised how strong the wave was.

So what really happened? How did this wind of change come about?

I believe it was a simple case of the people deciding that enough was enough. It was time to stand up to corruption, tyranny, racial and religious discrimination and arrogance.

The government had forgotten where the real power lies – in the hands of the rakyat. In the lead-up to the election, there were many things done that was akin to cheating, at least in my mind, including the redelineation exercise and the rejection of the application to register the loose coalition of opposition parties under a common banner known as Pakatan Harapan.

Like many other Malaysians, I stayed up practically the whole night waiting for the results and I was teary-eyed and at the same time brimming with pride at what my fellow Malaysians had just done.

We had effected change at the ballot box with no violence.

The best thing about this is that the rakyat is saying they will give this new government five years to carry out their task.

If, in five years’ time, they do not show any improvement or have not performed as they are expected to, then the rakyat will kick them out again and replace them with someone else.

So while congratulations are in order for the newly elected MPs and ADUNs, I would also remind them to please don’t take the rakyat for granted or treat them like fools. Remember that we have the power to put you in parliament/state assemblies and we have the same power to remove you at the next election. If you choose to ignore the rakyat, you do so at your own peril.