by Martin Jalleh

The Umno-BN hegemony has come to a sudden halt. The 50-year old political juggernaut has been severely jolted. Its formidable force fragmented. A mean machine has been reduced to a mouse.

The coalition that had used its brute majority to bully and bulldoze its way and will in Parliament, blinked when the Opposition breached its two-thirds majority. It was something that they had not bargained for.

The regime of humbug, hype, hypocrisy, hysterics and histrionics, displayed especially in Parliament, has been humbled, even humiliated. People in high places came hurtling down without knowing what really hit them.

The government of unbridled arrogance of power and brazen high-handedness has been brought low. A haunting silence hovers over the once haughty as their political future hangs heavily against hope. The high and mighty are hushed.

The powers that have dominated, dictated and decided for “the good of the people” have been dented. The BN is left in a daze as to why and how they have been ditched and damned so decidedly.

Umno’s high-profile ‘heroes’ had failed to prepare the party to cope with the winds of change. Instead, they became experts in denial, diversion, damage control and in demanding that they be not deprived of their “crutches”.

They had tried to stamp their superiority by demonising others, demolishing critics, “desensitising” non-Malays by brandishing a keris annually, and dramatically displaying Umno as the staunchest defender of Islam.

Umno’s elite would even walk over each other to grab any and every opportunity to satisfy their insatiable and grotesque greed — and they would have the gall to do it under the guise of fighting for the poor Malay.

Incapable of reforming themselves, as former PM Mahathir had inspiringly pointed out recently, it was only a matter of time when Umno would implode – self-destruct – the inevitable happened on 8th March!

The rakyat were fed up, frustrated and furious at the unconscionable Umnoputra elite and their lapdog coalition partners for having bled this country dry and gambling the country away with the racial and religious card.

The people were tired of the government’s make-believe. Behind its portrait of a “successful nation” hung an increasingly strained and soiled social fabric – which they had to contend with everyday of their lives.

Pak Lah’s advisors failed to read the groundswell of disillusionment and discontentment. Detached and disconnected from the grassroots, they discussed day-to-day realities from the 4th Floor…as the PM dozed off!

For four years they had gone on a frolick, fumbling and flip-flopping all the way, while the people struggled to stay afloat against the rising cost of living…and as the leaders of the country grew fat and flaunted their fortune.

Khairy and his boys on the 4th Floor must have flogged themselves or went into a fit as four more states fell to the Opposition. Oxbridge must have wished they never had such an ox-brained graduate.

Dr Mahathir says Pak Lah is responsible for ‘destroying’ Umno and BN. He forgets that the ruins of today have their roots in his government of yesterday — one riddled with the most rotten of policies, practices and public personalities.

“Small” Smart Voter

Alas, it was the “small” and ordinary man and woman on the street without cash, clout or connection who succeeded in clipping, curtailing and even crushing executive supremacy.

In the run-up to the elections they were unafraid of being gassed or goaded on like animals into police trucks. They also refused to be gagged by the gamut of executive powers to contain, cripple and crush legitimate dissent.

Neither did they succumb to the government’s threats and taunts, or fall for its treacherous tricks, treats and theatrics or bow and bend in servile subservience, or allowed themselves to be bribed or ‘bought over’.

In the long ‘march’ to freedom, the rakyat matched the BN’s ‘Man, Media, Money and Machinery’ with their ‘Courage, Camadarie, Commitment and Cyberpower’. It was People’s Power that pushed this nation forward.

The populace were also not swayed by the four economic corridors (totaling RM1 trillion) – a cheap claptrap meant to keep the PM and his cronies in the corridors of power.

They did not flinch nor faint when met with another “formidable force” – the Elections Commission – which left indelible traces of farce, flaws and fraud behind.

Aided by the alternative media, the rakyat were able to make out and even mock at the spin and slant created by the mainstream media assisted by their band of “convertible” intellectuals.

General Elections 2008 saw the voter of Bolehland coming of age. Crossing the age-old race and religious divides many boldly made their ‘one choice’ in the ballot box and told the PM the blunt truth.

The voter of today is discerning enough to decipher truth from falsehood, daring enough to cross mental borders, barriers and bias and to risk uncertainty that accompanies change, and determined enough to synergise with others to bring about genuine change.

The representatives of the Opposition must take note of this evolution of the matured and politically sophisticated voter – who will have no scruples over voting them out of office if they failed to keep their oath of office.

One can imagine Abdullah Badawi looking back on the day when the citizens of Bolehland gave him a massive mandate to seize the moment and to bring about much-needed change but the PM failed miserably.

The daggers are now drawn on poor Pak Lah. Perhaps Hishamuddin Hussien could tell us when they are going to use it? What a tragic and twisted irony! What an ‘unmitigated disaster’ for Umno, BN and the whole country!

(22 March 2008)