ITS OVER NINE THOUSAAAAANDD!

Election time in Malaysia means rallies, rallies, and more rallies all over the country to spread propaganda and gather support from the voting public. Penang State is pretty hot now, it is predicted the Opposition parties of DAP and Anwar's KeADILan will grab a whole bunch of seats here. That's what making Badawi and the Gerakan Party guys a little uneasy. Still, there's very little chance of Opposition getting over 50% of the State seats to form their own little Republic of Penang.

But who knows? Perhaps, when my train pulls into Butterworth this Sunday, I'll see a banner welcoming passengers to the Land Of KeadiLAND.

Maybe then they can paint up Komtar tower red and dress it up as a rocket as well...


Political rallies/ceramahs are good source of lulz (thats Netspeak for entertainment), especially when you have no plans for the night. So, a couple of friends and me went for this ceramah organized by DAP-KeADILan at the Han Chiang campus on Saturday. Hey, its a break from our usual Saturday schedule of watching movies or drinking moderate amounts of alcohol, you know...

By the time we arrived, the whole place was FULL. A flood of people were spilling out from the bowels of the arena and into the parking lot.

An impenetrable phalanx of people prevents you from proceeding further...

"Dude, we're like... full so you hafta sit in the yard, bro..."

No place to sit inside... so the organizers had assembled several projectors in the parking lot for latecomers like us.

"Hi! My name is Anwar! Vote for me!"

The message from a wisecracking Anwar Ibrahim, yelling Guang Eng, and Mr.Karpal was nothing new for me. I've read the same thing in DAPs manifestos. Anyway, Badawi has really pissed me off that, rest assured Mr.Anwar & Kit Siang... I won't be voting for BN.

But to the folks standing/sitting/squatting inside...

and outside...

they listened... wanting to hear what The Other Guys have to say. Estimated, over 9000 in total came for the ceramah. Thats right! Over Nine Thousaaand!

Even the rain didn't really stop them. Sure, some folks did leave, but really-latecomers still came in through the campus gates, eager to attend the ceramah.

The next morning, no word on this ceramah and the crowd of over nine thousaaand appeared on the pages of 'The Star' newspaper. Not surprising, since its government owned. But we DID have an op-ed by Wong Chun Wai cautioning Malaysian minorities that we won't have a Chinese/Indian/Lain-lain Minister in the next Cabinet if we voted for the Opposition, which only served to piss me off further.

Who needs a Chinese/Indian/Other Minister from the Barisan Nazional when he/she is only a puppet of UMNO?

When I leave for Selangor to cast my vote, my hope is the large turnout of Penangites at Saturday's DAP rally will translate into votes. Maybe my hopes will come true. But then again, maybe not.

Lets see...

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Fellow blogger Lucia Lai reports on the event

And Mr. Netto too...

Report from Malaysiakini and Malaysia Today