just another manic monday...

Or not.

General Election 2008 is over, and things are back to normal. At least things look to be normal to me. In fact, Sunday was pretty normal too, much to my surprise. But I'm proud that this time around, Malaysians are mature enough and did not cause any troubles anywhere in the country after the elections.

A quick recap on what happened on Saturday, few prominent BN candidates were ousted from the Parliament.

S. Samy Vellu himself, with G. Palanivel, S. Sothinathan, S. Veerasingam and Dr K.S. Nijhar; the top five in MIC, won't be sitting in the Parliament for the next four years, arguably the worst casualty in BN's group of parties.

Gerakan's leader Dr Koh Tsu Koon lost, and lost big, in Penang, with only two of his party members remaining in the Parliament. PPP president M. Kayveas is in the losing end as well.

MCA's leader Ong Ka Ting stays, but many won't be joining him as Tan Chai Ho, Ong Tang Chuan, Wong Nai Chee, Fu Ah Kiow, Donald Lim and Chew Mei Fun among those rejected by the people.

Umno did not fare too well, big names Sharizat Abdul Jalil and Zainuddin Maidin are out.

Of all these names, Sharizat must have been the biggest surprise. Although Nurul Izzah does ooze some confidence and a leader in the making, I did not expect Sharizat to falter after all she has done for the country for the past few years.

Tsu Koon's defeat was down to his Motorola deal, obviously, and Samy Velly didn't make a good impression with his threats. MCA's list of losers are clearly due to their inability to voice out the people's unrest.

I believe the major reason why the Opposition had so much support this year is due to citizen's rejection to the Government. Easy assumption, with all the prices hiking up, poor management of funds ending up with hundreds of millions going to the drain (90 million to send an idiot to space as a participant? what the hell?), corruption, racial polarisation and discrimination among few.

Of the late 2 weeks, they did not do well even though the managed to control the local medias to broadcast and channel their 'successes', while hiding all the flaws from public. What they did not expect is that the internet nowadays provide more than adequate news, unfiltered ones, for the citizens. The Star, NST, TV3, RTM and the others, you guys should be ashamed for letting BN control you guys like muppets.

With BN denied their craved 2/3 majority, what will happen in the Parliament? It'll be some time before we can expect some major changes towards our lives, especially now that the combined PAS, DAP and PKR seek to make some voices heard with the five states won.

But still, expect changes. For better or worst.