Where was God on May 6?

My daughter rang me from Sydney first thing on May 6, the day after the ruling coalition was nearly swept out of power, to wish me happy birthday.

"Are you disappointed," she came straight to the point, knowing how hard I had prayed, hoped, and campaigned for a new Malaysia. A Malaysia where we can have a diet of hope instead of fear. A new nation where we can love our friends as much as our enemies. A new homeland where there is no place for racism. A new bangsa Malaysia where our children and their children could grow up to be the persons that God Almighty had created them to be.

"No, I am not disappointed. Praise the Lord for answering my prayers; not in the way I had wanted it but in His sovereign will, the way Malaysia needed it," I said and she was stumped momentarily possibly wondering how I could accept the results of the general elections the previous day. But she understood.

I had travelled wide and far from Kota Kinabalu to Kota Marudu, from Kuching to Serian, from Gelang Patah to Kluang, and through the Klang Valley, and to Taiping where my wife and I voted. I could feel the groundswell. I was sure the opposition would win with a comfortable margin. The opposition didn't win but it didn't lose either. The mandate was stolen from under their feet.

Even the White House frowned upon polls irregularities while it congratulated Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak on the BN victory.

Its acting spokesperson Patrick Ventrell said the White House is aware of the concerns over the irregularities and notes that the opposition parties faced significant restrictions on access to the media.

"We note concerns regarding reported irregularities in the conduct of the election, and believe it is important that Malaysian authorities address the concerns that have been raised. We look forward to the outcome of their investigations," he added.

Where was God, and why did He allow the electoral fraud? I don't know. All I know is that He was there and is still there, sovereign over all His creation. And the GE13 was just a small speck that didn't and couldn't have escaped His notice.

When I told my wife, Kim, that our friend, Baru Bian, PKR Sarawak chief, had suffered a devastating defeat in Limbang parliamentary seat in his first outing there, she asked me to call Baru immediately.

Disappointment is an understatement even for a man who suffered two straight defeats since 1991 before eventually becoming the assemblyman for Ba' Kelalan in the 2011 state elections.

"I was stunned. More shocked when finally not even one seat from the rural areas we contested won," he wrote in his thank you note to friends.

"Deep within me, I was saying, God did not do His part of the bargain because all seems unreasonable, unacceptable and absolutely unjust", he confessed.

Although defeated, Baru was not forsaken. Soon phone calls and text messages began pouring in.

"I shed my tears too," said one SMS.

A pastor in Limbang texted to inform Baru that many of the Sunday school kids cried upon hearing the news that he lost Limbang.

Another pastor from Miri reminded Baru of one of their our favourite hymns, God on the mountain:

Life is easy, when you're on the mountain
And you're got peace of mind
Like you've never known
But things change, when you're down in the valley
Don't lose faith, for you're never alone.

Another friend e-mailed him Psalm 30:5, "Your sadness may last for a night, but joy will come in the morning."

"I pray that the night may not be too long," Baru responded.

His second son rang from Adelaide to say his Overseas Christian group on campus is "mighty proud" of him. This lifted his spirit.

Emmylyn, 17, his youngest daughter's response was, "For this reason I must consider going into politics!"

"Then I began to realise that this is a struggle, a ‘perjuangan', a political evolution that may take some time. It may go even beyond my time and my generation," Baru said.

"I must confess, it's so tempting to surrender, to give up to throw in the towel as it were, but now I hear the voices of many of you who chose to walk this same road with me urging me to move on and not to lose heart but together we will carry on to realise our Malaysian Dream," he added.

SinChew