Another Scandalous Sarawak Election Has Unfolded – No Surprise

The latest police report lodged Wednesday by the PKR in Asajaya depicts an abuse that is typical according to widespread complaints made by the barely resourced opposition candidates against the brazen and corrupted flaunting of wealth and clout by Sarawak’s ruling boss-men, who have been criss-crossing the state in government funded helicopters surrounded by civil servants to offer ‘projects’ and inducements.

The subject of the latest scandal is the GPS candidate Karim Hamzah, one of the established cronies of the regime who once proudly announced he saw no problem with a chief minister abusing his position to conduct business whilst in office.

A video has emerged of him enticing voters with a promise of major prizes in a lucky draw after the election if they hand in their copy of a GPS personalised voting leaflet printed with all their details back to GPS after they have voted. “This is not to buy votes” he protests self-revealingly, then goes on to explain.

“After you have voted, your slips will be kept in boxes at our partner’s place. We will hold a Lucky Draw .. with huge prizes – Large screen TVs, refrigerators etc. We will have the Draw 3-4 days after the Elections.  It is to encourage people to come out to vote. My hope is that it is US who come out to vote on the day”

Just one such prize would account for the entire budget of many an opposition campaign. In this case PKR’s candidate has justifiably complained the inducements are a disgraceful breach.

“Exciting prizes have been offered to individuals who get a lucky draw. I as a candidate feel dissatisfied with the essence of the video which seems to be buying votes”.

Whether the police will do anything about this standard form of GPS behaviour is moot. If they do slap a fine it will be a painless sanction for members of a thugocracy who are steeped in cash from endless privileged sources after a half century of abusing their absolute control of the resources of the state.

Such are the battles faced by their opponents who have been kept deliberately bare-foot by outrageous Malaysian practices that make a mockery of any claim to genuine democracy. These include a system where ruling party YBs are allocated huge sums of money to distribute among their constituents to bolster their position, whilst opposition representatives receive no grants and their areas are threatened with punishment for voting for the ‘wrong party’.

The thuggish ex-Deputy Chief Minister (now that the Assembly is dissolved) Awang Tengah was at those threats again just earlier this week in Opar where he warned voters in his speech that their area would lose out on the annual RM8 allocation handed to the local GPS man if the opposition was voted in.

Yesterday, Tengah took himself off by helicopter once more to another needy rural area Kuala Tutoh together with an army of officials to impress his overlord status on a local longhouse. The headman (who are now imposed and salaried by the state rather than being elected) had decked the place out in expensive GPS posters and flags and lined the population up side by side, all dressed in freebie GPS t-shirts, to greet him.

Opposition candidates, who barely have the cash to struggle round their local areas in the beating rain (whilst Tengah and his boys helicopter round the state) have been complaining time and again that their attempts at campaign visits have as in so many previous years been obstructed by the paid headmen. State police have been put in position to harass and follow opposition workers and to severely limit the numbers they can meet with.

This time Covid is again of course the  handy weapon and excuse to ensure there is one rule for the ruling party and one for the opposition.”Even if they let us in they will restrict the number of people who are allowed to come to hear us to a handful” explains one local campaigner.

Thanks to rules drawn up by the Health Ministry and UMNO’s Khairy Jamaluddin there are a myriad of restrictive rules in place under the Covid SOP, which it appears officials have liberally used to restrict opposition campaigners (certain senior figures have been barred from entering Sarawak) whilst top GPS folk move around with ease.

Indeed, as yesterday’s video shows, Tengah was able to swagger unimpeded through the crowded longhouse, shaking hands and receiving garlands round his neck. This at a time when the super-spreader Omicron virus has now been detected in Malaysia.

The one thing that GPS and their UMNO protectors could have above all done to combat spread would have been to encourage postal and mailbox voting. However, the old men of GPS who have crafted the electoral map to suit them over very many years had no intention of risking their victory to save lives.

If they had cared about lives they would have delayed the election till it was safer, but decided against it to avoid the youth vote which would have come into force less than two weeks after their rushed through ballot to be held this weekend.

Likewise, to have allowed postal votes would have enabled those younger, more educated voters away working in towns to exercise their rights as well, instead of the captive ageing communities whom the likes of Tengah are there to bully in the rural longhouses.

As low as a 40% turnout is expected for this pre-Christmas, pandemic ballot beset with the rains of the landau season and that is what suits GPS. This way they need only 17% of the eligible vote to gain victory.

Of course, it is not just bullying. The longhouse communities who have lost so much of their traditional way of life and means of living as the jungles and rivers around them have been destroyed are effective hostages of GPS and their place-men headmen.

Protests against logging have been met across the state with harsh police and court action, gangster attacks and the raw power of the massive bulldozing machinery important to tear out the trees and mow down anything in their way.

However, at election time, these intimidated and resourceless communities are offered some little treats. A pork feast, crisp bank notes, beer and cigarettes are the normal offering, donated at the same time as a reminder is delivered of the punishments to be expected if they vote the ‘wrong way’.

This campaign has been no exception as numerous photographs and evidences have been obtained showing the practice in full flow.

The handouts have not just been on the part of GPS but also the highly suspect ‘opposition party’ PSB, which is headed by ex-ministers and the timber cronies of the present government with the likely intention of splitting the opposition vote.

Take the latest leak of GPS paraphernalia (right) being prepared, by the looks of it, in the luxury of a helicopter cabin on the way to some new target.

GPS mugs and a stash of crisp RM50 notes all prepared from the loot obtained by abuse of government on the part of the political party now seeking to buy the opportunity to loot some more and to use the full force of the state against anyone that criticises the pillage.

It isn’t even a genuine begging or bribing exercise, since the longhouse captives have little option but take what is given by the powerful and armed outsiders. Urbanites and West Malaysians who complain at the ‘mentality’ of longhouse folk or claim they have a ‘culture of money politics’ betray their own lack of awareness and understanding of the predicament of the subdued indigenous communities of Sarawak.

It is the agents of the colonialist regime that West Malaysia operates in the Borneo States who have inculcated the mentality of bribery and pepper corn rewards to those who have no choice apart from outright rebellion against the armies of the state. There is no justice and there is no rule of law as these appalling election antics show only too clearly, so what can the longhouse do but accept their guests and accept their ‘gifts’?

Until the people of Malaysia find their own awareness about the nature of the oppression in Sarawak which is being raped for its oil and natural resources for the benefit of a ruling elite and West Malaysia’s development, there will be insufficient pressure on their government to act.

The failure is with governance. Criminal kleptocrats were imposed under emergency conditions by the federal government during 1970s in a determined bid to secure the oil. In return for a deal with those catspaws (Taib Mahmud and his uncle) KL has allowed freedom to the thug leaders of the state to raid the rest from under the feet of the native people.

The federal authorities have failed to act on corruption, to curb abuses at elections, to prevent outrageous gerrymandering or the abuse of the bloated civil service to promote the interests only of the ruling party. So, don’t blame the victims for accepting cigarettes and doing what they are told and remember whilst Sarawak GPS hold these seats hostage the rest of Malaysia suffers under the abuses of the governments they are happy to support to maintain their office.

What is striking about this Sarawak election is just how few changes there have been in the ranks of GPS candidates, mainly now old men who have enjoyed a life in politics treating their positions mainly as a sinecure which they plan to keep for life. Of the few seats that have changed hands at least one has been handed as an inheritance to the son of Adenan after Adenan’s wife decided not to bother to inherit it herself.

So, as we continue to wearily observe, the old dogs have not changed their tricks as they resist change and the coming generation.

More news of the dirty GPS tactics has come in also from Marudi in the last few hours where once again under the guise of ‘voter education’,  leaflets are being handed out to every voter with instructions on where to find the polling station and which box to tick.

And to focus minds on getting it right yet another duo of crisp RM50 notes, looted from the public purse is attached to each instruction sheet (doubtless there is a further bribe offered for after the mission has been completed).

In return for such humble pennies GPS aim to secure ‘permission’ to loot the remaining billions from the lands of the people of Sarawak. They have played the same game for 50 years.

Yesterday another faint-hearted opposition leader announced (amid fanfare) that she was changing sides to go to GPS. Her reasons were selfish but pragmatic – the opposition had given her ‘no help at all‘ she said, whereas GPS was prepared to.

But, don’t blame the longhouse for money politics and the cheap dependency culture where impoverished communities swap the great wealth of their lands to kleptocrats who wave cheap gifts. Blame federal Malaysia and its dirty colonial secret in Sarawak.