I Voted.

I Voted.

My first experience voting is something that I will remember my whole life. I walked to the polling station, holding a really big umbrella that invoked giggles and tease of the pakcik-pakcik, who were holding kopi session by the roadside. The sky was rather dark, and I kept feeling the rectangular shape of my identity card in the back pocket, fearing I might have forgotten it.

As I stepped out of my gate, this is what I see. The polling station was located at the end of this road, on the left.

I accidently took this picture. See the sky? It was pregnant with water. Just about to rain.

I love voting. I will vote as long as there's breath in me, and as long as the country is not yet drowned à cause de global warming. The fact that my vote counts and does make a difference is empowering. If you're the kind of person who couldn't care less about the "politics" of this country, I implore you to just try it once. It's nice to be an adult and vote.

This is our Dewan Orang Ramai, comfortably taken by the BN as a strategic venue to place Puteri-Puteri UMNO, may I add, very cute ones, at the table. See that pink shirt? What you can't see is the PAS booth right across the road, modelling their best breed of young men, also, able to melt those Puteris' hearts. These two, according to my Abah, were bickering dengan manja sekali at each other that morning, when all the elderlies were not there (all went to vote first thing in the morning). Comel nye rasa nak picit-picit pipi tu! Pinang karang! Aww!

My father was joking about how he is a Saluran 2 man, not yet Saluran 1. Konon muda lagi la .. You know these polling booths are divided into saluran-saluran, which corresponds to age. 5 is for new/young voters ( that's me, heh), 2 and 1 are for the "pencen dudes", and the sages of the country, and everyone else is somewhere in the middle.

Yes, this is the tempat keramat, completely ready with the yellow SPR/CSI tape around. I voted in one of those rooms behind the blue sign.

Iklan jap, Oi Carimah, nasib la u vote untuk Pelangai ni, kalo tak buang karen I je register untuk u.. bagus! Hot girls who vote are even TSSSSSS!

Also a shout out to Sangeetha, whose patriotism rooted from my registering her to be a voter this year, and she fulfilled that duty! You so good la Geetha! I'm proud of you!

The result.

This is the most interesting part, of course. For the first time in the country's history, the ever ruling party is suffering from considerable loss of seats all across the country. Both DUN and parliament seats were heavily contested and won over by the opposition parties. Although, the majority still sided with Barisan Nasional, winning them yet another term to hold the Federal Govt.

Though the technicalities of the result is not my expertise, as a citizen, I am relieved to know that democracy in this country is still capable of bringing about change, and that my right is not rigged by a corrupted system, as experienced in some countries in Africa, and Latin America. Even America's voting system is unbelievably fishy to me.

The result is surprising - 5 states go to the opposition, and the rest remains under Barisan Nasional. I for one, never thought this wave would materialized this soon. Perhaps I haven't been watching YouTube as much as I should have, eh?

So Amy asked me, what does this mean for our day-to-day life? Will anything change? I said, perhaps we will not personally experience this change anytime soon. But slowly, the changes will reveal themselves. Those lucky/deserving winners will work hard, if they understand their role well enough, and if they can foresee their fate if they fcuk up things in their kawasan.

This is the end of "taking things for granted" era. Many have learned their lesson, and gained more reasons to be true to the meaning of "service for the people". And this kind of change, is absolutely most welcome.