MALAYSIA today seems almost a miniature version of what emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union or the end of Empire, or the retreat of any entrenched monolithic authority.

Cut down a great tree, and the sudden irruption of light and air allows a profusion of undergrowth to burst into bloom where before only thin and pale shoots struggled to survive.

Thus, the drastic pruning of the Barisan Nasional has resulted not in a single alternative political administration but five of them.

This is the classic outcome of a protest vote. Against a vilified regime, any and all opposition is effective. With popular sentiment this evenly divided, the very nearness of the goal is sufficient to harness a motley crew of challengers into a single battering ram against the establishment.

Still, some 48 per cent of peninsular voters stuck with Barisan Nasional; more in Sabah and Sarawak, boosting the BN's share of the popular vote nationwide to a shade under 52 per cent. People Power needs a larger popular majority, which is obviously elusive among a pastiche of competing minorities.

Those who voted for BN had the singular objective of preserving the status quo, while the other half of the electorate had several, sharing only the objective of beating BN. Thus, Kedah has acquired an Islamist government and Penang a socialist one, Perak has had to consult and not merely advise the palace, while in Perlis, Terengganu and Johor it appears the palace needed neither consultation nor advice.

With the long experience of Kelantan, Sabah and Sarawak, perhaps the Federation of Malaysia might be able to accommodate this trend towards becoming a loose confederation of more-or-less autonomous states. But was this really what the people wanted? This might have been a protest vote got out of hand -- people may have wanted a better government and a stronger opposition, not that they should trade places.

But the votes for a more balanced and effective federal parliament would have been counted together with those more selfishly concerned with the state assemblies; those who wanted their homes, neighbourhoods and communities to be theirs and theirs alone. Was the concern of such voters merely to be masters and commanders of their own tempurung?

Of course it was. In 50 years of trying, it has never been possible for any "opposition alliance" to find common ground. Recalling the 1969 elections, racial alliances of any kind might no longer have been possible if not for the opportunistic genius of Tun Abdul Razak Hussein & Co in the aftermath of the last time the government was reduced to a simple majority in parliament.

The Barisan Nasional would never have existed had it not been for that opportunity, coincident at that crucial moment in history with the presence of the appropriate leadership. They assembled something that, frankly, the voting citizens of Malaysia did not want. But it was what this country needed: a unitary multiracial coalition in charge of the government.

So rare and precious was such a thing that this woefully divisive nation abided by it for the next four decades before getting fed up enough to resend the message of the 1969 elections: half the Malaysian electorate does not want the other half to assert any form of "dominance" over all. What allowed them to register this complaint more effectively now (or at least less catastrophically) was that this time Malays could also withdraw support from the ruling alliance -- they had an alternative now that didn't exist in 1969.

Hence, in perhaps the bitterest irony of the 2008 general election, Malaysian multiracialism has crossed over to the opposition benches of parliament, leaving a battered Umno on the government benches with the walking wounded of its BN partners. Perhaps, with this sudden infusion of lifeblood and 82 seats in parliament, the opposition parties might somehow arrange themselves into the "Other Coalition" so many see as a possibility, on route to a "shadow government" and a "two-party system" like all "mature" democracies.

If that's at all possible, it will take more time than a single parliamentary term will allow -- especially one beginning as fractiously as this. For now, given the arcane complications facing the new state governments of Kedah, Penang, Selangor and Perak, the question is whether they can accomplish enough in the next five years to buy them the future.

Many commentators are lauding what transpired on March 8 as "triumph of democracy" in this country. But the Malaysian model required that democracy be a means of governance -- democracy's most constructive, inclusive and constant application. Instead, the 12th general election was an exercise of democracy as a means to bring down governments -- its basest.

Some triumph. Some maturity.