COMMENT | In 2008, during the 12th general election, I was working for Anwar Ibrahim. BN held 90 percent of the seats in Parliament, while PKR had only one, Permatang Pauh.

It was a time where it was hard to find candidates to contest all seats. I have vague memories of people who were at the office for unrelated business being suddenly (and only semi-jokingly) asked whether they wanted to contest.

There were probably something like three to five of us primarily involved in the PKR internet campaign, and online fundraising was done via personal blogs. It was a time before WhatsApp, and social media had not reached its prominence.

Needless to say, it was nowhere near the massive scale of today.

Election day came, I voted in the morning, and took a nap to catch up on some sleep. I spent the rest of the day playing computer games (Call of Duty 4, I believe), and basically expecting not much to change - I thought perhaps we would win a few more seats, and hopefully we wouldn’t lose our single one.

Come evening, I was starting to get unexpected phone calls: “Come back to work, we’re taking over Selangor.”

It was a rollercoaster of a ride, as we converged at Anwar’s house in Segambut. I remember the younger me getting all excited, starting to speculate about BN MP’s crossing over (Anwar said something like “Not now, it’s not time for that yet.”)

Perhaps some wiser pundits foresaw the results, but I believe most of us were indeed ‘tsunami-shocked’. It felt like nobody saw it coming.

GE13 mega hype

Fast forward to five years later, and things were completely different.

From a loose electoral pact led by a one-seat party, the opposition was now a full-fledged formal coalition, representing a broad cross section of Malaysian society, with credible experience running five state governments together, with unity and direction.

For me personally, this was the biggest election hype I had ever seen. It was no coincidence that the particular clarion call for this round was “Ini kalilah!” (This time).

It may not be a stretch to say that Malaysia had never previously before had such a credible government in waiting – especially in terms of a representative, workable coalition formula, and significant experience in government. Hype and hope both ran high.

Alas however, as the chips fell, it was not to be. Pakatan Rakyat delivered BN’s worst defeat in history, but still failed to cross the finish line. It felt like the streets were littered with crushed hopes and dreams.

GE14?

Now, there are only days left to our next reckoning. I imagine different people and different circles have different impressions.

I think it’s probably fair to say that cynicism about the current opposition has increased somewhat over the past few years, and the levels of apathy have risen.

From my own limited view, I would summarise the hype and expectations as being more than GE12 (which isn’t hard), but less than GE13 – perhaps tempered by the experience of the latter.

Is this a good or bad thing?

It may be a gross oversimplification of course, but one could speculate that it’s possible the tsunami in GE12 happened precisely because of the lack of hype.

Perhaps even voters who were generally change-averse figured it was still safe to cast a protest vote against BN, not expecting any big changes.

It’s not possible to expect exactly the same scenario in GE14, and it’s possible that GE12 was a one off thing; but ultimately, I think that history suggests that reduced hype does not necessarily mean reduced votes for the opposition.

Trend in Harapan’s favour

There is another small simple statistic that bodes well for Harapan, looking back at the last two GEs.

That fact is that votes for BN have been decreasing. The decrease is not exponential or even linear, but it is two clear dips nonetheless.

In terms of exact numbers the percentage of seats and the popular vote for BN in the last three elections are respectively: 90 percent and 64 percent for GE 11, 63 percent and 50 percent for GE12, and 60 percent and 47 percent for GE13.

One might speculate that as the internet and a more open flow of information expands, voters are drifting away from BN slowly but surely.

At the moment, it still feels like anyone’s election. Certainly, the ubiquity of three corner fights this election may still be the largest roadblock, but a Harapan victory is still far from out of the question. I guess it’ll ultimately be up to each one of us to make the future we want a reality.

NATHANIEL TAN loves flashes.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.