In a desolate democratic landscape, one in which gerrymandering, wily public servant handouts, and an anti-“fake news” bill from the incumbent Barisan Nasional government seemed to all but guarantee a GE14 victory for the ruling coalition, the opposition did the unthinkable last night and won.
They won big. So big that by midnight, their leader, one-time prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, took to Facebook live for an impromptu press conference, declaring that his party had already won the 112 seats needed to form a government. There was no official statement confirming this from the country’s Election Commission (EC), and the country waited with bated breath.
If you’re wondering why Facebook live was the venue for this historic announcement, and not one of the country’s many news channels that had devoted their entire day’s programming cycle to the events that preceded the final count, we’ll remind you that we’re not exactly known for our press freedoms over here.
Mahathir went on to declare that he hoped the delay in results was not due to any “hanky panky” of the vote-rigging type.
From the EC came silence, and then a couple of hours later, a hasty press conference in which their chairman, Tan Sri Mohd Hashim Abdullah, declared that the ballots needed to be recounted, carefully. We would have to wait.
Slowly, the results trickled in, and the numbers spoke for themselves: The opposition had won over 112 seats in Parliament. The state of Johor, where the BN party first came to provenance, had fallen to the opposition, so had Negri Sembilan, Kedah, Melaka, and Perak. Here was the tsunami that Mahathir had forecasted in the run-up to the election.
Internationally, the papers that had once declared that BN a shoe-in were scrambling to change their tunes.
The New York Times called it an “upset,” the BBC and The Guardian called it “historic” — it certainly was. BN had been the ruling coalition of Malaysia since the country’s inception, and just like that — it wasn’t.
Speaking to citizens live on the ground, The Guardian found that several of those they spoke to were there when Malaysia first formed 60 years ago, and could not believe that the people brought down the almighty BN.
“We have been waiting for this for the past 60 years. This is a miracle for us. And even though I was not a fan of Mahathir, I think he was the only one who could have brought this victory,” said one.
The nonagenarian statesman who is ostensibly back in the saddle again as PM previously led the country for 22 years. One-third of BN’s tenure was under his direct rule.
As The New York Times points out, many of Najib’s corruption scandals, and the freedoms without accountability that he enjoyed came courtesy of policies that were brought forth by Mahathir himself.
The public is acutely aware that while Najib may have put Anwar Ibrahim (the currently jailed co-leader of the opposition) in jail this time over sodomy charges after the last election in 2013, it was simply a move out of Mahathir’s late-’90s playbook: Back in 1998, after dismissing Anwar as deputy prime minister, he jailed him under similar charges.
No swearing-in ceremony has been confirmed, with the Palace this morning telling media that it won’t be today. Until then, the country holds its breath yet again, stunned at the power the people have to initiate change, and ponder what an opposition-led future will look like.
We can’t wait.
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