* Note: This post echoes the many thoughts that have been circulating on the social media scene since the results became official.*

The official tally for parliamentary seats stands at this: BN (Coalition) – 133 seats and PR (Opposition) – 89 seats

You need 112 to win simple majority and 148 seats for two-thirds majority.

This means that the ruling government retains their hold over Malaysia but they do not have the two-thirds majority needed to make any major amendments to the constitution. Opposition retain their control over three states while the government took away some and retained others.

Many people have expressed sadness and anger at the way the elections have been conducted. Facebook and other social media have been flooded with wall updates that speak of how democracy is dead in Malaysia and that Malaysia is dead.

I believe that it is not true. There are many things that we should celebrate and learn from.

There was a reported 80% voter turn out for this GE which makes that higher than countries like the US, Japan and France. If anything, that shows that democracy is well and alive. That shows us that people care enough to vote, that people want to be heard. This is important because if you have people who care, then these people will also care enough to find a way to make sure that Malaysia stays alive. When I voted in my first GE in 2004, young people – I was 25 years old – were a sight for sore eyes. Almost everyone around me was in their 40s. In this GE, my peers are beginning to understand the importance of casting one’s vote and many of them – first time voters – register and make their way to the polling booths. Thanks to the efforts of people back at home and abroad, postal voting has been made possible for the first time in history, resulting in many overseas votes being cast for this GE. These are things that we should celebrate.

Most of the seats won by the coalition came from Sabah and Sarawak where cities are few and far in between. The people in rural areas depend largely on mainstream media which offers little to zero opposition coverage. As such, they may not be as informed as their urban counterparts. Their needs, lifestyle are also different. For the longest time ever, we in the Peninsular have excluded our peers from Borneo. Many of us know little about the going-ons there, even myself – sad to say. As such, if the opposition wants to win the next election, they have to reach out to not just Sabahans and Sarawakians but also to those living in rural areas. Unification doesn’t just occur across age, gender and ethnicity but also between the urban and rural. We need to start understanding these people, start listening to their needs, start exposing them instead of hoping that they’ll “see the light” on their own.

This has always been a long journey. Veterans from the opposition party like Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh will tell you that the road to success is not easy and sometimes it may seem a little out of reach. To get what you want, you will have to work hard for it. Many Malaysians are used to getting things fast with minimal effort. We want overnight change. It is easy to fall into the trap of looking at the battle and not the war. The journey is not over. It is FAR from over. The Coalition has gone from more than two-thirds majority (198 seats) to 133 seats in three elections (less than 15 years). It is a sign that change takes time. This is the time to show people what we are made of as a nation. Are we going to crumble at the first sign of “failure” or will we take a step back, look at the issue, celebrate the little successes and learn from our mistakes? I believe we as a nation are strong and hopeful. We are a young nation – even older nations are still constantly fighting on for the good, constantly improving. Let us not feel sad or despair but be joyful in the little successes and work harder, if not smarter for the next GE.

More importantly, BE THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE.

This means that if you want to see less racism by the government, don’t be a racist. Don’t even bring up someone’s ethnicity in anything. Praise or punishment, someone’s race should NEVER matter. We are all Malaysians.

If you want better quality education, make the effort to improve yourself. Go for classes, read more, pick up skills, hobbies, anything. Don’t just depend on others to spoonfeed your information. Spend some time doing research. Don’t be afraid to question what you read in the media or what you’re being told. Education doesn’t just happen in the classroom but out of it. It doesn’t end or start in school but continues throughout one’s life in every aspect of it and everywhere we are.

If you want to see better work quality and fairness at the workplace, lead by example. Don’t spend your time at the office playing computer games or surfing the Net. Don’t work overtime just to look hardworking. Avoid it if you can. Work hard and work smart. Be fair to your colleagues and employer.

If you want to see more activism from others, you need to be active and aware. Take the time to help a cause in any way possible. Even spreading the word online is good enough (but make sure it’s valid and genuine). Start caring about other communities around you. Homosexuals are persecuted just for loving someone of the same sex while we heterosexuals get away with anything. Most Orang Aslis are illiterate while we squabble about the quality of education. What about the way we treat our foreign workers? Poor living conditions, not even minimal wage and then we accuse them of increased crime rates, etc.

If you want to see servant leadership, you need to learn to serve. Don’t just care about making more and more money. Give back to society in whatever way you can. Spend some time with the poor, downtrodden. Go into government service or an NGO cause for the poor, the needy and so forth. Don’t just think about what is in it for you but what you can give back to others as well.

This is definitely not the end of Malaysia but the beginning. Just make sure that it’s a good one.

When word arrived that 28 April was voting day for postal voters, the hubs went “If your application has been approved, we’ll take a day off from school for Eva and drive there”. No hesitations, no questions. He was supportive and rightly so, being French. For him, his stand on voting is “If you can, you must. People should start getting fines for not voting”. So won’t it be crazy if he prevented his wife from voting? And after years of me drilling and complaining and ranting to him about not being able to vote just because I’m overseas.

So we drove for 3.5 to 4 hours – from Dole to Paris – and bunked at his uncle’s place. While he relaxed and chatted with his uncle, I spent most of my nights camped in front of the laptop, busy doing some voters’ homework, watching ceramahs, reading articles and so forth…among other things like finding out where to get some cheap postcard printing done.

This morning, my hubby woke me up.

“Mabel…time to wake up…”
“ZZZZZZZZ”
“Time to wake up and go vote!”
“Aiiii…what time is it?”
“Time to go vote la!”

I swear sometimes my hubs gets excited about things more than I do. I got a slow start to the morning after having slept late the night before but after a 30 minute drive on Parisian roads, we arrived at the embassy on a chilly spring Sunday morning with two kids and an uncle in tow. There were two volunteers from the Bersih charter – I think – outside and the embassy official was quick to guide me into the waiting area where I left the kids, my hubs and his uncle as well as my tablet filled with cartoons to help keep the adults sane and the children entertained. There was no queue – in fact, I was the only one there at the time – and the embassy official got me to dump my phone into a sealed bag and off I went on my way to casting my vote as a postal voter for the first time. Hence the “no photos” post.

As I made my way, I grew more and more excited. This is the 2nd time that I’m voting and I still remember what the first time was like – I was giddy with excitement and my hands were shaking. If they had used indelible ink back then, die la, how to keep from smudging the ballot paper?

There were two polling officers – one who checked my IC and crossed out my name on the roll call. Postal voting is slightly different as each person is listed via their address and name (because ballots are issued to the person and not the number of his or her IC). In an actual roll call, your name SHOULD NOT appear but your IC number should appear. As the three polling agents watch like hawks (I like it), I made my way to the opposite table where the witness is. There I took out my envelopes, forms and ballot paper and went through them one by one. I started with the papers for the Parliament seat – checked the ballot paper, envelope for any markings and so forth. The names of the candidates appeared correctly, ballot paper was clean, serial numbers were all correct. So the form was signed and set aside. Next the state seats. While the envelope, serial numbers were correct, there was a printing error on the ballot paper. The opposition candidate’s name ended with a full stop which I suspect was an error since the parliament seat ballots were not “fashioned” that way.

Now here’s one major different with postal voting. Because they come with serial numbers, there are no extras so the officer had to write a report and that report is then placed together with the ballot and form in its respective envelope. The polling agents were also taking down notes – I dictated the error, the candidate’s name to the office and all in full view of the polling agents. For those concerned that serial numbers could be traced, please see this video on postal voting here.

After that, it’s the usual process of “go cast your vote in that box”. The ballot paper is placed in its envelope and then both envelope and form is then placed in the envelope marked with the Returning Officer’s address. The process is repeated for the state seat. Both envelopes are then dropped off into the electoral brown bag.

And it was over.

I met up with my hubby, children and uncle – this time, there were two other people waiting for a friend – a good sign. When I arrived, 11 people had casted their vote before me. I wanted to find out how many voters they were expecting but never got a chance to chat with the embassy folks in the waiting room and neither did my hubby.

Once I left, I called my parents to inform them of the error and ask that they help inform the candidates for my constituency and state – my parents are active when it comes to voting and politics. My dad asked me to write an email, put down the details so that he can drop it off with the candidates. He tells me that they’ll be busy but he’ll pass the message.

Everywhere around the world, beginning from midnight yesterday, people were making their way to their respective embassies and queuing…and casting their vote. The M’sian embassy in Melbourne expected 1,700 voters while even in Kazakhstan, 17 M’sians casted their vote. There are voters updating FB walls and group pages from London, Pretoria (South Africa), Geneva, Dublin, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Perth, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Wellington (New Zealand), Brussels…the list is endless. Some flew in, some drove, some cycled…others from different cities in the country, some just from around the corner. Young, old, even families with kids showed up.

It is evident – no matter where we are, who we are married to, what we work as, we still love Malaysia enough to make the effort.

So for those of you who are living in Malaysia, are Malaysians and reading this, let me end with this:

I have done my part, please do yours now by voting (or contributing if you missed the boat this time around) and don’t let my efforts be in vain. If some people can brave the 4 hour journey to the embassy and then the 5 hours in the cold, standing and all, to cast a vote, why can’t you do the same?

I’m casting my vote tomorrow as a postal voter in the GE13.

With a few hours left to go, I’m doing some homework – am busy listening to ceramahs (campaigns) by my constituency representatives. I still wonder if my ballot will reach Malaysia safely if I choose to go the “ballot box” way and am still on the fence about whether I should courier it back or drop it off as the time frame for courier is very tight plus it’s rather costly (money is an issue for us right now).

I reckon I’ll probably reach my decision tomorrow in front of the roll call. In the meantime, for those of you back at home, if you have the time and would like to contribute to your country by means other than voting, head off to TindakMalaysia.com (link here) and sign up to be a PACABA (polling/count/barung agent)!