Today, after five decades wondering what a live broadcast of parliamentary democracy in action might look like, Malaysians got their answer: plenty of farce, very little debate.

Highlights of the unprecedented television spectacular included a crescendo of bellowed calls for calm, childish insults, impassioned name-calling, and muttered vows by the government that the experiment with bringing democracy to the small screen would not be repeated.

At the climax of one lively exchange, Bung Mokhtar, a senior ruling coalition MP, was branded “Bigfoot” by Karpal Singh of the Democratic Action Party. In keeping with playground tradition, the wounded party retaliated with the argument “If I am Bigfoot, you are a big monkey.”

It was, MPs on both sides of the house agreed later, a truly disappointing start to what most ordinary Malaysians had hoped would be the glorious dawn of a new political era.

The circus-like scene – described by the former opposition leader as “a mockery of parliament” and worthy of a “tenth world democracy” – was the first session since the ruling coalition’s extraordinary drubbing at the polls in March

It also comes as Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the Prime Minister, is under extreme pressure from both his own party and the general public to bow out of politics by the end of the year.

The opposition bloc, hugely invigorated by its many local victories across key Malaysian provinces, brimming with confidence and now with four times more MPs in parliament than it had in February, had been looking forward to this moment for weeks.

The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition still controls a substantial 58-seat majority in the house, but its leaders, along with the electorate, know that the days where the opposition MPs could be expected to sit quietly are in the past.

Especially since, in an effort to counter charges of opaqueness and corruption, the BN leadership agreed that that parliamentary question time should be televised live. Fears that the dozens of newly elected opposition MPs would take the opportunity to ham-up their parliamentary debut were, said Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Chik, realised.

“People tend to play to the gallery when you have it live,” he said “we will definitely consider whether the live telecast should continue.”

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