11.11.99 - When Mahathir gave us 9 days to launch Malaysiakini

As most of the country was still celebrating Deepavali, then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was not sitting around munching on murukku. 

On Nov 11, 1999, three days after the festival of lights, Mahathir dissolved Parliament, setting the ball rolling for Malaysia’s 10th general election.

Reeling from the fallout with his deputy Anwar Ibrahim, and battling the Asian Economic Crisis, few believed that he would go to the polls in the narrow window between Deepavali and Christmas. The federal government budget had yet to be passed and goodies yet to be enjoyed.

With over six months left on the electoral calendar, we thought we had a bit more time to prepare. Malaysiakini had only just set up in a Petaling Jaya shophouse, staffed with only three reporters still in training and a web designer. The Malaysiakini website looked like this.

I remember riding my kapcai to go meet Steven Gan. Obviously, we were not ready, so do we then pass up the opportunity to report on the election? Or perhaps we could do a few stories and share them over email, and build up a mailing list? 

Despite discussing, planning and fundraising for Malaysiakini for over a year, actually launching the site gave me the shivers.

Steven was more optimistic. He felt that the election was too good an opportunity to miss. Could we get the office and website ready in time? Could we recruit some volunteers? Will our friends help? We decided to give it our best shot.

A few days later, the Election Commission set Nov 20 as nomination day, and Nov 29 as polling day, setting the stage for one of the shortest election campaigns in history. 

This left us with days to create a website and get the office ready. I had recently learnt how to build a website using Microsoft’s Frontpage HTML software running on Windows 95. Working with Steven and our web designer, we cobbled something together.

On nomination day, Nov 20, our reporters and Steven wrote a few pieces. Using our 56k dial-up modem, we uploaded the first few stories. In those few minutes, without any fanfare, Malaysiakini was born! 

I don’t think we quite realised the journey we had started. We never saved the frontpage, but thanks to the internet archive, this was Malaysiakini on Nov 28, 1999.

It didn’t take long for Malaysiakini’s first scoop. We reported that Chinese daily Sin Chew Jit Poh had replaced Anwar with Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in a photo, in a bid to reflect the then leadership of the BN. 

The paper initially defended its action, suggesting the photo was to illustrate the current leadership. However, the editor-in-chief of the Chinese daily later apologised for the alterations, calling it a grave mistake. 

Malaysiakini continued to break election stories, with clear signs that Umno’s Malay base was split. On election night, Nov 29, the government-controlled mainstream media delayed reporting the results until Mahathir was comfortably back in power. 

Readers turned to Malaysiakini, where we announced that PAS was the main beneficiary of Reformasi, capturing Kelantan and Terengganu, with Keadilan also performing well. 

However, non-Malay voters backed Mahathir and the BN, leading to losses for DAP stalwarts Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh. Malaysians have been turning to Malaysiakini for election results ever since.

Next Saturday, Nov 20, 2021, marks Malaysiakini’s 22nd anniversary. 

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