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 ....

Day Minus 1

I have just finished my clinic this morning and half of the patients on the list did not turn up. I am pretty sure it had a lot to do with the election tomorrow.

The road heading to work this morning was practically empty, and the hospital lobby was also rather quiet.

There would be more shenanigans tonight with the parties trying to pull last minute fence-sitter to vote their way. There would be a national address by Najib while at the same time, Tun M would be blazing the net. I hope that there would not be any blocking of the bandwidth - I already had VPN installed just in case!

It will be a fun day tomorrow hopefully and I am praying that there would be peace.

Exciting Times

Another 2 days. Then it would be another public holiday, but this one would be like no other. It is going to be the public holiday for the 14th General Election #GE14.

I will be voting in Bukit Antarabangsa as usual, plannng to finish my rounds super early and be at the polling station by 10 when the first wave of people were done with their voting.

My Mum would be there as well as Julia, but Mum would get a special lane as “warga emas”. She would not be canvassing like she did in the past election. In fact, she was getting worried about the way the country was heading as well.

The mood in town and work place had definitely changed. People seemed more optimistic. There might not be a change of Government at the end of the day, but the messgae from the Rakyat seemed to be loud and clear. The statements coming out from the ruling party did not help matters as well. They seemed rooted from the 80s. Same old tactics. Same old excuses.

From the seat at the balcony ...You can find me here as the results come trickling in ...The Internet certainly helped disseminate information more readily. There was no need to pay for the bandwidth. Only one party who paid for adverts and all it did was made me wonder what their strategies were. Listening to the mainstream TV also did not help. Lopsided reporting with poor journalism making me cringe everytime I switched TV3 at 8 pm - or at any time for that matter.

We crave news and an open mass media would be something worth fighting for no matter who would be ruling. We live in an information age and the more we were curbed, the more mistrust there will be.

With Tun M promising Thursday and Friday would also be public holidays should he become the next Prime Minister, even my boys got excited. “Will I get 3 days off Daddy?”, Idlan asked. Bless him. The country definitely needs a change. For the sake of the next generation ...

I will be spending the rest of Wednesday hooked up to the net barring any disaster. The calendar for Thursday morning was also quite light - something I planned. I will be on the sofa at my balcony, enjoying the breeze out in the open. Hopefully with that, it would be a wind of change. In shaa Allah.