GE13: Anwar Fought A Good Fight

Anwar, you fought a good fight!

I have no illusion that the Election Commission would do much about the claims of electoral fraud. Everything seems to be  honky dory and okay for them, including indelible ink that was supposed to be indelible.

You came, you saw and you conquered your audiences.

You entertained, you cajoled and you even tried to educate us on what politics should be.

Politics should be politics with a conscience.

It does not equate with cows and condos, contracts and monopolies for family and cronies at the expense of the nation.

Politics with a conscience means good governance.

Good governance means being accountable and working responsibly and well for the good of the country and the welfare of its citizens, not being greedy and corrupt or hankering over and after power and position for oneself.

You offered us free education.

You offered to do away with the tolls that keep us poor just to connect from place A to place B, either to go to and fro for work or to visit our families, while the connected few grow fat on them and laugh all the way to the bank.

You offered us cheaper oil, cheaper cars and you even offered to look into cheaper Astro and telco rates.

You also promised to cancel the PTPTN loans that burden our graduates (and their families) even while they struggle to find employment.

And you showed us how and why doing all these things you won't bankrupt the country as your political detractors would want us to believe with their Rosmahian mathematics.

You promised us a more inclusive society where every Malaysian, irrespective of his race or religion, feels that he truly belongs and is appreciated and whose rights will be jealously guarded.

You offered to do away with corruption and corrupt practices and to punish those who would still indulge in them, even if they belong to your party or your coalition partners.

You said that you bear no grudge towards, and have forgiven, the man who had vilified, jailed and humiliated you even though there are those who want you to put him in jail.

You said that you have no time to harbour grudges and that all you wanted was to be free to have the time to plan for the nation.

You could not offer free dinners, Psy, t-shirts or ang pows to your audiences, yet they stilled came in large numbers to your ceramah to hear you, rain or shine.

They laughed, clapped and applauded, vuvuzelaed and clamoured for more each time you made a joke, point or a promise.

But all is now academic when the election results apparently show that the Devil has won.

At this juncture, it is only too easy, at your age and after all that you have done and suffered, to give up.

Stay in there!

Even Johore, the birth place and bastion of Umno, could, and has been shaken, with the inroads made there, especially by your coalition partner DAP.

Only Sabah and Sarawak, unfortunately, remain basket cases (for whatever reason or reasons) and look like will continue to be so, poor souls!

Concentrate on the peninsula kampungs.

This time, the people's votes might have been hijacked as you and your coalition partners and even Bersih suspect and, of course, the people too!

The high turn out at 80% and the large numbers of Malaysians returning from abroad to vote could only be indicative.

What more the 51% popular vote your coalition won!