The general elections has ended, the recounts have been done and the posters are slowly being taken down. The 11th Malaysian general election, like any other election in any other country had its surprises, successes and more importantly, its upsets.

A politician does not contest to lose. But lose you shall. Someone must. An election is not a win-win situation. Not for politicians. But, than again, election is not really for politicians, is it?

In a democratic country, the general election is for the people. This is the one moment in history when the people can go out into the streets and have a say in where and what the country is heading for. This is the one true time that democracy is evident. The elected party is the people's choice.

Democracy is derived from two Greek words: demos meaning people, and kratia, meaning rule. It basically means the rule of the people. In Malaysia, election is the time when the people pick the party or the coalition that they believe can help rule the country for them for the next five years.

Obviously this is an important decision to make. This decision will ultimately decide how the country will stand, and how the people will be represented. It will also bring to light the people's feelings towards their political leaders.

My father once said that the educated man will always think that he knows what is best for the uneducated. In another case, the politicians will always believe that they know what is best for the people. In Malaysian politics, this scenario has always been prevalent.

One sees politicians making speeches on how the people need to know what is good for them. On how they need to be told what is right and true and just. On what is the best course of action.

During the run-up to the general election, the voices of the elite and the educated rung the loudest. They revisited the once-powerful Anwar Ibrahim issue. They talked of being racially-divided and being bullied. They talked of gerrymandering by the Election Commission.

On the Barisan Nasional side, they talked of economic development. They talked of reviving the agriculture industry. They talked of new strategies to continue with Vision 2020. And the people listened. And they thought. And they decided.

Now the election is over. The people made their choices. BN wins by a landslide. Of course, there is talk of the weird overwhelming wins in Terengganu and Kelantan. There is talk of fraud, of bribery. More talk on the EC.

But this is only talk between politicians. What about the people? Their voices are drowned in the fray of upsets and disappointments. They return to their homes, proud of having done their duty, and resume life. But the talk goes on.

Opposition supporters have taken the liberty of pointing out that the defeat of their parties is not due to that party's own personal weaknesses but is due to the fact that the people still stand on old ground. The people are the ones who refuse to reform. The people are still tied down to old ideas of the racial divide and racist politics.

That the people are not true Islamists. The people are naVve, not ready, with some opposition supporters going as far to say the people were stupid. They only stopped short of saying that the people were mindless drones controlled by the government and the mass media.

Why? Because the people will not conform to the ideals of a party that thinks itself as morally superior? Because the people were not convinced by the Malaysia Baru manifesto which claimed that the opposition was truly 'the' government for them? Because the people supported a government that the opposition has worked so hard to discredit all these years?

The people have spoken. They did not shout and scream, but their words spoke in silence through the ballot box. And in this silence, they made their wishes known. They wanted a government that would put food on the table and create jobs in the marketplace.

They wanted a government that would bring social order and peace, and put Malaysia on even standing with the rest of the world. They wanted a government they could believe in. And they chose a government that in their eyes had the ability or at least, has shown the ability, to do this.

Is it the people's job to conform to the ideals of a party, or is it the other way around? If the opposition parties would only take a moment to think about the people, the real people, for once in their lives, then perhaps they could bring about change into the country.

But until that time, the people will continue to vote for the party, which represent the people's interest, at the central core of their dogma and their manifesto.

The opposition has always made it its duty to speak loudly and eloquently on democracy. They use quotations and references from America, Britain and ancient Greece. But when democracy presented itself in a light not benefitting them, they completely ignored it.

Malaysians have spoken. Democracy made itself known. Yet only one party was listening. Guess which.