The Spreading Reformasi

First, the people revolted against the BN, showing that reformasi was alive and well.

Then the Perlis, Perak and Terengganu royal houses followed suit, refusing to cave in to demands from any political party in choosing their respective Menteris Besar. Sultan Mizan of Terengganu, aka the Agong, showed Badawi that being Prime Minister no longer means being the most powerful man in the land.

Is the media next? Malaysiakini reported on March 29th, the observations of 3 media watchdogs, including:

...The Star was the most partial among English newspapers in terms of elections reporting in favour of Barisan Nasional (BN) with 63.12 percent its election reports being ‘pro-BN’.

The daily was also found to have had the smallest proportion (5.5 percent) of pro-Opposition reports, while 31.3 percent of its stories were ‘neutral’.

Talk about a slap in the face! Once upon a time in 1987, the Star had enough guts to go against the BN and found itself banned from publishing. Having suffered through the aftermath of its embarrassingly out-of-touch election season coverage, the Star Online unveiled a new look yesterday, accompanied by more neutral reporting (gasp!) of non-BN parties.

Check out the latest headlines (2 non-political stories not displayed):

• Penang gets its shadow Exco
• [Taiping] MIC branch dissolved; members become PAS supporters
• [Perak] Village chief polls next month
• Gerakan deputy sec-gen quits all posts
• Release Hindraf 5, says Samy... yes, you read that right!
• Ahmad Said sworn in as Terengganu MB
• Experiment on reforms, opposition-led states urged
• Focus on service to the people, DAP founder says
• Three houses gutted, MB [Kelantan]'s home saved

None of them are about the BN in a power position. No "the Prime Minister said..." or the people "told" to do this and that by Najib, etc. And perhaps more shocking is the front-page feature story with a smiling Wan Azizah and the caption:

GRACE UNDER FIRE: A doctor turned accidental politician has survived the political roller coaster of the past 10 years and now promises some vitamins to improve the nation’s health.

What?!! This would have been blasphemy just last week! Perhaps this MCA-owned publication, like the MCA itself, has finally woken up and smelled the coffee.

And if the formerly-delusional Samy Vellu can change his tune, does that mean there's hope for the likes of the UMNO-owned daily below?

Utusan Malaysia had allotted about 83 percent of its pages for pro-BN reports, and only 1.89 percent for pro-Opposition reports. -Malaysiakini