Democracy suddenly came alive in a very fundamental way, when significant political change was wrought through the simple act of mass voting.
The simplicity of that act, when placed alongside the enormity of the collective effect, leaves an experiential gap that needs filling up through actions that offer more immediate and concrete effects than mere changes of personnel in government.
No election time is at hand. No by-elections are impending, the state assembly in the state of Sarawak, which had its elections only in May 2006, does not need to dissolve itself until early 2011, and barring any dramatic twist of fate or sleight of hand, the next general elections are not expected until 2013.
Several party elections have been held, such as that of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), the Malaysian Chinese Organisation's (MCA) and Parti Gerakan Rakyat.
The Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), the Parti Agama SeMalaysia (PAS) and Parti Keadilan Rakyat are expected to hold theirs in mid-2009.
The one that will catch the most attention is of course the party elections of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in March next year.
But all these are exclusive for-members-only affairs, and although the results will naturally influence Malaysian politics, they do not require special participation from the masses.
The empowerment that many Malaysians have felt after the elections results will not allow them to merely adopt a passive posture while waiting for politicians on both sides to deliver whatever it is they deem themselves obliged to deliver in their own sweet time.
The now freer, fairer and more open mentality among voters which had led to the surprising shifts of power, will seek new and more immediate avenues of engagement with society at large.
Large numbers of new members have been joining the opposition parties since March 8, reflecting a wish among Malaysians to participate more intimately in the politics of the day.
The sales of most newspapers have also taken a jump, not to mention the increase in the number of mass circulation publications.
However, the site for political activity and discussion which promises to be increasingly more satisfying and which goes beyond the mere reading of reports about contestations by proxy taking place in parliament and in state assemblies, will lie outside the old mass media.
Traditionally, the mass media were by definition meant for mass consumption. Elite groups formulated the message and the rest of society was subjected to it. But with new information technologies, this one-sided flow has dramatically been altered.
The mass media are beginning to connote mass participation as well.
This cannot but stretch the boundaries and the coverage of established newspapers and television stations.
Any political agenda that they might have, aimed at limiting information, is easily revealed through the public's easy access to other channels of information.
No reader or viewer likes being taken for a ride. The chances of him or her finding out that he or she has been made a fool of by a certain channel of information have increased tremendously.
This makes things tough for propagandists of the old school and for the old mass media. Keeping the public in the dark is not as good an strategy as had been the case.
The game has indeed changed. Arguing one's case openly - instead of keeping uncomfortable information under wraps - is on the way to becoming the preferred method of information control, even for governments.
Indeed, much of the flames of disapproval of Abdullah Badawi's administration were fanned over time by easy public access to information that was kept out of government-controlled mass media.
Significantly, the voter revolt of March 8 was strongest in urban areas where Internet penetration is deepest.
Although Malaysia does not belong among the countries with the broadest popular use of the Internet, the Web's influence was nevertheless greatly felt, and was supplemented effectively by the tight social networks in this half-urban and half-rural nation.
News spread fast in such a setting and scandals spread even faster. This leads inevitably to news being spread as scandals more than as information.
The tight control that the government had over the traditional media led to a crisis of credibility in government television channels and newspapers, making the public much more willing to believe in the alternative media than would otherwise have been the case.
A lot of the pressure that the government, especially the Home Ministry and the Information Ministry, may expect to suffer in the coming months and years ahead will therefore concern press freedom issues and the public's right to publish, whether in print on online, and how sedition and libel on the Internet are to be defined.
To be sure, this is not a problem faced only by the Malaysian government. It is an inevitable consequence of the series of new information technologies that hold the potential to turn anyone - man, woman, child, defeated chief minister or retired prime minister - into a news reporter, a political commentator or the celebrity of the day.
For the government, calls for amendments to, or annulment of, key legislations that limit freedom of expression, such as the Internal Security Act of 1960, the Sedition Act of 1972, the Official Secrets Act of 1972, as well as the Printing Presses and Publications Act of 1984, among others, will be harder to ignore in the days to come.
Given the government's present need to outperform the opposition parties in reforming policies, these demands may actually stand a better chance of being met than ever before.
The writer is a Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. His forthcoming book is March 8: Eclipsing May 13 (with Johan Saravanamuttu and Lee Hock Guan. ISEAS 2008).
