A New Dawn

The buzz was still in the air. The couple of days of holidays certainly contributed to the festive feeling as the roads were empty . Unfortunately it was business as usual for me. In fact I had a full clinic, was on call plus had a stem cell infusion during those break.

My father-in-law had also been taken ill and was admitted at IJN. The news was he was improving and was catching up with the news from his hospital bed.

There were still drama going on at the State Government level. Quite a spectacle seeing these politicians being disloyal to their old party and showing their true colours. But the important thing would be the Prime Minister. Tun M had been sworn in and hopefully the cabinet would be up and running in the coming weeks.

Time to settle down for Ramadhan ...

Swearing In

This event was important at so many level. It had to be done soon, otherwise there mught be blood shed in the streets. The tension was getting palpable as the delay was evident.

Relief was the best word to describe my feeling after seeing Tun M finally being sworn in. There was joy in the air. The mood was optimistic.

Tun M looked weary after the event was completed. The old man could do with a rest. He still has plenty on his plate I was sure, but he needed to slow down.

There were still plenty of uncertainty at the state level. There were candidates who had jumped ship joining Pakatan Harapan, further strengthening its position.

The Rig

As it was in the past election, I kept a close eye on the results as they trickle in. Rather than wait to hear it on mainstream channels, social media was the way to go.

My Mac Pro were rigged to them allowing me to blast the reports through twitter and facebook as they came in.

I used a multi-column tweetdeck app to monitor twitter with keywords and mentions, while another screen scour the RSS feeds using feedly and of course facebook though the web browser.

Stock for the night ...I had instagram on the phone and to disseminate my tweets, I used tweetcaster pro, which allowed me to simultaneously post on both twitter and facebook with just one click. I ended up usign the phone to send out posts attached to a bluetooth physical keyboard allowing me to type fast and post ont the fly.

The disappoinitng thing was how slow it took for the results to reach us. SPR really let us down - and Karim Raslan really had a go on live TV - and it was bordering on frustration. Once the results started to come in, it was evident that the then opposition were gaining ground.

SPR optimistically - and somewhat arrogantly - promised that the results would be done and dusted by 10 pm, but it was not to be. When Tun Mahathir came live on the air at around 1.30 am putting pressure on the commission, then finally things were moving.

Clearly the Chairman was unprepared with the shift that night and since there were plenty of results not going as expected, they had to do more checks and recounts. This raised the suspicion of the so-called “black magic” which were rife in previous elections. The Chairman also had to answer the question on why the voters who came earlier that 5 pm were not allowed to vote despite queueing for hours before to get to the room. He simply did not hvae the details and looked stunned. There were also an imbalance in the number of voters paired with centers with clearly they had too many voters than they could cope.

Karim Raslam really went mental after elarning that Tony Pua had a majority of more than 100,000. Clearly there were just too many voters at the constituency.

Almost out of kuaci .... but many of the results were still pendingThe results were more or less confirmed by 3 am and despite the tally was not ready for Sabah, I had to call it the night. I was already tired from my tons of posts and reply. Suffice to say that it was an interesting night and the rig worked like a charm ....

The Talk of the Town

After I casted my vote, I had the whole day in front of me. I wasn’t in the mood to stay home and Anita and I decided to have lunch outside.

We went to Pavilion which was quite. Parking was straight forward, and we had a nice Arabic meal together. Anita did some shopping while I took a stroll towards Low Yat to see what was going on.

There were two groups of local people there. Some with inks on their left index finger - which were about half - while some did not. Many of the workers at the stores told me that they were taking turns to vote and hopefully those going later had time to do the voting.

Bukit Bintang area were filled with flags as you would expect but compared to years before, they were a lot less. Many of the candidates target the voters directly on social media rather, with most of the voters going to them, rather than they coming to us. Having a big social media presence was imperative in this day and age.

The sun was great but we had to leave early to listen to the news and prepare for the night ... the results were coming in!

Balloting #PRU14

The day has finally arrived. The day started early for me and I had to confess that I was feeling excited. Although it was not the first time I would be casting my vote, there was something in the air today which made me feel optimistic.

And it had nothing to do with Diva Azwan Ali whose name will appear on my ballot paper.

I went straight to the ward for a quick round, and since Julia was sorting out my Mum at the Bukit Antarabangsa with her vote, I decided to have a quick breakfast first.

That final pushPAS had a woman candidate here... and a big flag!I finally arrived at Bukit Antarabangsa at 9.30, joined the queue in the bright morning sun which was a good 150 meters long. The first lot - including my Mum - had already fulfilled their duty and had left the centre. Plenty of people were canvassing, including the Parliament Candidate for a certain party who came to shake our hands, trying to convinve us to vote for her if we remained undecided. The whole situation was jovial, plenty of banter and everybody were in good spirit.

But unfortunately, SPR was not at their efficient best. It took me almost 3 hours to complete the process and not without some confusion in between. And that was despite knowing my lane and serial number up front.

The Menteri Besar has his state seat here at Bukit AntarabangsaBN was based across the road. And they lost big here!The queue was just as long back in 2013, but it took me less than a quarter of the time. The instructions this time were pretty confusing, as we were told to queue at a wring lane, with people coming later being able to get in front.

I thought that the wait was over when I got into the voting centre compound, but it was not to be. It took a good hour before thengs were moving and I felt that the procedure could have been refined and more efficient. Luckily, there were no incidence at the centre because if so, I don’t think that the SPR were able to cope.

Entering the voting centre compound finally ...Not much longer to go ...All done ...I was done by noon and headed back to the apartment and had a shower before going out again for lunch at Pavilion. The city centre were very quiet and with the nice weather, I decided to enjoy the day.

Next came the wait for the results ....