As a Malaysian who until recently had known no other prime minister apart from Mahathir Mohamad, I have been breast-fed with exhortations to prove that 'Malaysia Boleh' almost as soon as I became old enough to understand the words.

Despite all glorious achievements of our nation, such as being the first to land a car on the North Pole, the world's longest lemang, etc. the fact is that many other supposedly lesser-developed countries often beat us at things that we think are good at.

Take for example the many self-congratulatory statements from our leaders that Malaysia is a successful democracy. The elections held earlier this year were a sham, starting from the scandalously short campaigning period, to the immature and unfair way in which the campaigning was carried out and the widespread voter apathy and irregularities during the voting period itself.

And recently, we were shown a humbling lesson from across the Andaman Sea. An orderly, well-regulated general election involving a population with15 times more voters than our entire national population.

In the end, the poor and disaffected majority exercised their right and put into office a new government, in a sterling display of the true power of democracy. In comparison with the shenanigans that occurred in our own elections, the main emotion that this evoked is shame.

Shame that for all our bluster and Mahathir-endowed virtues, our nation's democracy is a travesty compared India's, which is a country supposedly far behind as far as development is concerned.

And even as incumbent Indian prime minister resigned as the spectre of defeat loomed, he had the grace to say: 'I and my party have lost, but India has won'. Imagine that from a defeated Umno prime minister (assuming this will ever be allowed to happen).

In the final twist of the tale, one of the potential candidates for the new Indian prime minister wasn't even born in India! On wonders if persons representing communities making up half the Malaysian population will ever be given the opportunity to become the leader of their own country.