S’wak: Why Pakatan failed to deny 2/3rd majority

By
Ong Kian Ming

I did not have time to write a prediction piece for the recently concluded Sarawak state election because I was heavily involved in the campaign this time, rather than analysing it as an outside observer.

But I did tweet and put on Facebook (and placed a few friendly wagers) that the BN would lose its two-thirds majority by failing to win at least 47 seats. I was, not for the first time and certainly not for the last time, wrong.

In this first of my two-part analysis of this election, I will quickly lay out the basis for my initial optimism and then proceed to explain, using the election results, why my prediction did not materialise.

I will pay particular attention to the very complicated voting patterns exhibited by the various non-Muslim bumiputera groups because these voters were, and will likely be, the swing voters come the next general election.

Why I thought it was possible

My initial sense of optimism that the BN could possibly lose its two-thirds majority in the state assembly arose way before jitters started manifesting itself among those in the ruling coalition during the course of the 10-day campaign.

I had identified a list of 35 potentially vulnerable seats, not including the eight seats in non-BN hands when the state legislature was dissolved. These seats fell into four categories.

The first category comprises of 15 seats which the BN won with less than 60% of the popular vote in the 2006 state elections.

These include four Chinese-majority seats – N39 Repok, N46 Dudong, N49 Pelawan and N64 Pujut – but also include a number of Malay/Melanau seats – N20 Sadong Jaya, N24 Beting Maro and N30 Saribas – as well as Dayak and Orang Ulu seats – N19 Kedup, N25 Balai Ringin, N26 Bukit Begunan, N29 Batang Ai, N57 Belaga, N60 Kemena and N70 Ba’kelalan.

I also included the Iban-majority seat of Engkilili in this category, since the BN lost this seat in 2006 but subsequently ‘regained’ it back when the Snap candidate, Johnny Rayong, switched parties and joined SUPP.

The second category comprises of seats which the BN won with more than 60% of the vote in 2006 but had favourable demographics for the opposition, they being Chinese majority. The three seats in this category are N13 Batu Kawah, N47 Bawang Assan and N63 Piasau.

The third category comprises of seats which experienced a more than 10% decrease in the level of BN support from the 2006 state election to the 2008 general election.

This includes the Iban-majority seat of N27 Simanggang, which experienced a 31.2% decrease in the level of BN support from 83.3% to 52.1%, and N56 Baleh, an Iban-majority seat where voters have been affected by the Bakun dam construction, where the level of BN support plunged by 26.2%, from 89.5% to 62.3%. There are 11 seats which fall under the third category.

The fourth and last category features seats which the BN won by more than 60% in 2006 but which have been affected by new campaign issues.

Unhappiness over the treatment of the local population as a result of dam-building activities in Bengoh and Baram could have potentially affected voters in six seats – N1 Opar, N16 Bengoh, N17 Tarat, N18 Tebedu (Bengoh) and N66 Marudi and N67 Telang Usan (Baram).

For the opposition to deny the BN the two-thirds majority, it needed to retain all eight of its seats and win another 16 out of the 35 potentially vulnerable seats. Tripling the number of opposition seats was a tall order, but the ingredients for a potential tsunami were present.

A chief minister in Abdul Taib Mahmud, who had been in power in the state for over 30 years; the growing body of evidence of the wealth that he and his family had amassed, both in Sarawak and abroad, through website Sarawak Report and the dissemination of this information through Radio Free Sarawak and through word of mouth; the growing disputes over NCR (native customary land) as a result of aggressive expansion by Peninsular-based oil palm companies into Sarawak; the evictions and displacement of many local communities as a result of dam-building activities; the stamping of the Al Kitab and the ban on the use of ‘Allah’ by the local Christian community; all these were reasons to think that the growing urban discontent against Taib and the BN which was already evident among the voters in the Sibu by-election, could penetrate into many of the rural and semi-rural areas, including in some of these potentially vulnerable seats.

But this was not to be. The opposition managed to retain seven out of the eight seats it held, and won another nine seats, two of which – Krian (won by PKR) and Pelagus (won by an independent) – were not on my list of 35 potentially vulnerable seats.

What went wrong then for the opposition? Or to put it in another way, what didn’t go right for the opposition?

I will leave the issue of party organisation, seat negotiations and multi-cornered contests and how they affected the election results to Part 2 of my analysis. Here, I will only undertake a numerical analysis of the election results.

Analysis of voting trends

The first reason as to why the BN was able to keep its two-thirds majority is that the anticipated swing among the non-Muslim bumiputera (NMB) voters was not big enough for the opposition to win many of the NMB majority seats.

Table 2 below shows the overall BN support and the estimated BN support by ethnic group for the 2006 and 2011 state elections.

To simplify my analysis, I grouped all the major NMB ethnic groups – the Bidayuhs, the Ibans and the various groups which are lumped together as Orang Ulu – into a single category.

A more accurate way of estimating the level of BN support would be to use voting results and ethnic composition figures at the polling stream level, but because I do not have such data for all of the seats, I have settled on the next best option, which is to estimate the BN support by ethnic group using state seat level data.

The results in Table 2 (right) confirms that the reality ‘on the ground’, so to speak. The decrease in the level of BN support among the Chinese community was the largest, from 45.1% in 2006 to 25.5% in 2011, representing a drop of 19.6%.

This makes sense since it would not have been possible for the opposition to increase their majority in many of their existing seats by such large margins and to win additional seats, which the SUPP had won with more than 70% of the popular vote in 2006, without a significant swing in the level of BN support among the Chinese.

The NMB support for the BN fell by slightly more than 7% from 63.9% in 2006 to 56.7% in 2011. But unlike the fall in the Chinese support for the BN, the overall fall in the NMB support for the BN did not exhibit a consistent pattern across all the NMB-majority seats.

While one can safely conclude that the Chinese support for the BN fell in most, if not all, of the Chinese-majority seats, the picture for the NMB-majority seats is much more complicated.

Among the 30 seats where the NMB voters comprise more than 50%, there were 22 seats where the level of support for the BN fell and the average fall was 12.8% for these seats. But there were also eight seats in which the level of BN support actually increased, by an average of 12.1%.

Tables 3 and 4 list out the seats in which the level of BN support fell (22 seats) and where it increased (eight seats).

Among the seats listed in Table 3 (right) are many of the potentially vulnerable seats listed in Table 1 above, including N1 Opar, N2 Tasik Biru, N16 Bengoh, N17 Tarat, N19 Kedup, N27 Simanggang and N67 Telung Usan – all of which were won by the BN with less than 60% of the popular vote.

With another 5% swing in the Iban vote, eight of the seats in Table 3 would have gone to the opposition.

At the same time, there were also a number of potentially vulnerable NMB-majority seats that, surprisingly, went into the safe column for the BN (Table 4 below).

These included N25 Balai Ringin and N26 Bukit Begunan as well as N57 Belaga, a seat which the BN won with only 42% of the vote in a multi-cornered fight. The BN made an impressive gain of 24.9% in Engkilili, a seat which the same candidate had won under the Snap banner in 2006 with only 46% of the popular vote.

The BN Batang Ai incumbent also consolidated the gains made during the 2009 by-election by winning 71% of the vote – an increase of 6% from the 65% he obtained two years ago.

It was somewhat surprising that BN made gains in two out of the three state seats in the Sri Aman constituency (N25 Balai Ringin and N26 Bukit Begunan) given numerous reports of land grabs in this area and the presence of two relatively well-known PKR candidates, one of whom was the former state representative for Balai Ringin (Ibi Uding) and the other, a former MP for Sri Aman (Jimmy Donald).

The voting trend among the NMB voters is further complicated by variations in the semi-urban seats with a high percentage of NMB voters.

While it would not have been possible for the opposition to achieve its sizeable gains in seats such as N13 Batu Kawah (21% NMB), N40 Meradong (40% NMB) and N59 Kidurong (35% NMB) without at least some decrease in the BN support among the NMB voters, a quick comparison of the NMB-majority voting districts in N46 Dudong (37% NMB) and N47 Bawang Assan (33% NMB) showed that the NMB support for the BN actually increased in these areas.

No statewide swing among non-Muslim bumis

What conclusions can we then draw in regard to the NMB voting patterns in 2011?

Firstly, that we there was not the same kind of statewide swing against the BN that was seen among the Chinese voters. The NMB voters comprise of different ethnic groups and are not as cohesive as the Chinese and most importantly, are not moved to vote in respond in a uniform manner to the common issues of NCR land rights, land grabs and relocation and displacement due to dam building.

In other words, the salience of land grabs affecting Iban voters in one area will not move Iban voters in other, perhaps even neighbouring areas, from voting against the BN. Only if these issues seriously affect the majority of voters in one area, will they vote against the BN in significant numbers and only in that affected area.

The second conclusion which can be drawn is that the candidate factor makes much more of a difference in the NMB-majority seats compared to the urban seats. This is not to say that personality issues are not important in the urban areas.

One of the reasons why DAP’s Chong Chieng Jen managed to win the Kota Sentosa seat despite the presence of 3,000 postal votes is his popularity among his constituents. But the magnitude of difference is much greater in the non-urban non-Chinese majority seats.

A candidate who was serviced his constituents well, including possibly resolving some of the land issues, would be able to stem the tide of a swing against the BN. This would explain some of the results in the seats in Table 4, where the support for the BN actually increased.

At the same time, one cannot assume that a former state assemblyperson or MP, who is now competing as an opposition candidate, would be a better candidate. More often than not, voters would remember the failure to deliver constituency services rather than past services rendered, which is probably why some of these candidates were dropped by BN in the first place.

On the other hand, well-financed and new opposition candidates who have not contested before but nonetheless have worked the ground consistently in the period leading up to the state elections may produce electoral shocks as was the case with Ali Biju (PKR) in Krian and George Lagong (right) (Independent) in Pelagus.

The third conclusion I would draw is that one cannot assume that the NMB areas which are located near town centres such as Sibu, Miri and Kuching would automatically be more inclined to vote for an opposition candidate.

Many of the polling stations in the state seats of Dudong and Bawang Assan, although located about an hour from Sibu town (by boat or by car), still do not have running water or electricity.

If given a choice between a Chinese DAP candidate who cannot speak their language and who cannot provide them with monetary incentives or development projects and a BN Chinese candidate who can give them both, at least two out of three Iban voters would choose the latter.

The situation here is somewhat reversed from Peninsular Malaysia where one would expect voters in the urban areas who are from one race to be more likely to vote for an opposition candidate of another race compared to those in the less urbanised areas.

Finally, I briefly discuss voting patterns among the Malay/Melanaus (MM). Table 2 shows that the BN support among the MM actually increased slightly from 78.3% to 79.6%, an increase of about 1.3%. This should not be that surprising given the strength of the PBB in these areas and also the continued popularity of the chief minister among the Malay/Melanaus.

But even here, there are some differences in the changes of support for the BN in the MM-majority seats. In the 21 MM-majority seats, 13 experienced a fall in the level of BN support, by an average of 7.0%, while eight experienced an increase by an average of 8.1%.

Even though the BN support among the Malay/Melanaus increased slightly, there were more MM majority seats in which the level of BN support fell because of the presence of Chinese and NMB voters in these seats.

Tables 5 and 6 below lists out the seats in which the level of BN support fell (13 seats) and where it increased (eight seats).

Among the MM-majority seats where level of BN support fell was N24 Beting Maro, a seat which PAS stood a chance of winning. However, this was the only MM-majority seat in Table 5 where the BN’s popular vote stood at less than 60% in the 2011 state election.

The BN made impressive gains in many of the MM-majority seats listed in Table 5 (above), registering double-digit gains in four out of the eight state seats.

Among the seats in Table 5 are N20 Sadong Jaya and N30 Saribas, two MM-majority seats which the BN won by less than 60% of the popular vote in 2006 but are now firmly in the safe column after gains of 13.4% and 13.5% by the BN, respectively.

Unless there is a serious split within the PBB as a result of a leadership tussle after Taib leaves, it is hard to imagine the opposition winning any of the MM-majority seats in the next state election.

More in-depth study required

This long article has barely scratched the surface of the complexity of Sarawakian politics.

Only a much more in-depth academic study can uncover the reasons as to why BN performed better or worse in many of these constituencies, especially those outside the urban centres including the service record of BN incumbents, possible sabotage by dropped candidates, the salience of local issues such as land grabs and dam building, the financing and on the ground presence of opposition candidates, just to mention a few.

The purpose of this article is to provide some facts and figures that will hopefully help improve the overall understanding of Sarawak politics and elections.

This article broadly agrees with an earlier Malaysiakini article by Bridget Welsh in that the swing against the BN in Sarawak was not just confined to the Chinese voters but it included a large percentage of NMB voters as well as MM voters in selected constituencies.

Where there are differences is in the magnitude of the swing against the BN among the different ethnic groups. This article maintains that the Chinese vote swing against the BN was the largest, followed by the NMB voters.

Even though the overall figures show a decrease in the level of BN support among the NMB voters and a slight increase among the MM voters, there is significant variation in the level of BN support within the NMB and MM-majority seats.

The next part of this analysis will discuss the impact of the state polls and the challenges faced by both the BN and the opposition parties ahead of the 13th general election.

———-

ONG KIAN MING holds a PhD in Political Science from Duke University. He is currently pioneering a Master in Public Policy (MPP) program at UCSI University. He can be reached at im.o
[email protected]
. He was based in Sibu during the state election.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 21 April 2011, 5:00 am and is filed under
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Behind the scenes of Raja Petra’s TV3 interview

By
Koon Yew Yin | CPIAsia

At the PKR 11th anniversary dinner on Tuesday (April 19) in Ipoh, party vice president Chua Jui Meng alleged that Raja Petra Kamarudin had been bought. Chua said that money could do wonders as indicated by the recent Sarawak election result.

Why would the fugitive blogger and Malaysia Today editor just before the election, in the TV3 interview, cast doubts on his own sensational statutory declaration?

In his SD of June 18, 2008, Raja Petra swore he had been “reliably informed that between about 10pm on 19th October 2006 and early hours of the following day, the night Altantuya Shaariibuu was murdered, three (3) other people were also present at the scene of the crime”.

In an e-mail interview with Malaysia Insider on April 15, Raja Petra insisted that he is not a turncoat. He said that he will continue to support the opposition – the Pakatan Rakyat.

Immediately following the TV3 interview of Raja Petra, the Prime Minister Najib Razak claimed that he is thankful that the truth has finally emerged and he considered the matter closed.

Is the matter really closed?

Many Malaysians, including myself, consider the matter as far from being closed because all the earlier unanswered questions are still awaiting responses, especially from the PM himself.

These questions are as follows:

What were the motives of the two police officers convicted of killing Altantuya as they appear to have no earlier connection or previous knowledge of her?

How did they obtain the C4 explosives and who approved the release of this strictly restricted materiel to them?

The third accused Abdul Razak Baginda – who was acquitted of the charge against him – is a political analyst with known ties to Najib. A transcript had surfaced of alleged text messages between them. What did the sms exchanges imply?

Why was DSP Musa Safri never investigated when he gave orders to his officer Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri to help Razak Baginda? Azilah had testified in court that Musa told him Razak had a problem because someone threatened him and he [Azilah] was to lend assistance to Razak.

Why was Altantuya’s record of entry missing from the immigration records? Have the immigration officers responsible provided a credible explanation as to how Altantuya’s entry details seemingly disappeared?

Why has the immigration department not carried out an internal inquiry, and the other higher authorities carried out an independent inquiry, into this serious breach or if they did, the report not made public?

Why were the three affidavits and video interview of P. Balasubramaniam, who was engaged by Abdul Razak Baginda as private investigator and who has since vanished, not investigated?

The above questions have been there right since the start of the case and they will continue to be there for posterity until the truth of the grisly murder finally emerges.

And until these damaging questions are fully investigated by a fair and independent police and judiciary, the cloud hanging over the Prime Minister’s head because of the Altantuya case will not be dispelled.

As this matter is so sensational and the whole world is interested, the government must set up a royal commission to investigate it thoroughly so that all quarters under a cloud can be vindicated, and Malaysia’s image as well as public confidence restored.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 April 2011, 5:05 am and is filed under
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Challenges for BN, Pakatan after the S’wak polls

By
Ong Kian Ming

Apr 22, 11

In
Part 1
of my analysis on the Sarawak elections, I explained the opposition’s failure to deny the BN a two-thirds majority in terms of the insufficient and unevenly distributed non-Muslim bumiputera (NMB) vote swing against the BN.

The complexity of the changes in the level of BN support in the NMB-majority seats, and to a lesser degree, the Malay/Melanau-majority seats, were also illustrated and explained.

Here, in Part 2 of my analysis, I put forth some of the implications and challenges for each of the major parties within the BN in Sarawak as well as the opposition in light of the election results.

What will Taib do now?

The biggest campaign issue during this state election was the length of time Abdul Taib Mahmud had been in power and when he would step down as chief minister. After the election, this issue remains unresolved.

The importance of Taib’s post-election plans as a political issue occupies an even greater prominence because he is at once the BN’s as well as the opposition’s greatest asset and liability in Sarawak.

Prime Minister Najib Razak and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, both of whom were sending not-so-subtle signals to the Sarawak electorate that Taib would step down soon after the election because of the fear that he could cost BN the two-thirds majority, can no longer use this excuse to pressure Taib to retire.

After all, Taib did accomplish the goal of retaining the two-thirds majority relatively comfortably and his own party, PBB, winning all 35 of its seats with 68.3 percent of the popular vote in these seats.

To force Taib to step down before the next general election would be to risk a leadership struggle within PBB that may result in a Malay/Melanau faction breaking away to form its own party or to join an existing opposition party.

We have seen in Malaysia and in other similar non-democratic regimes that elite splits in the ruling party are one of the main causes of a long standing regime losing power through the ballot box.

At the same time, Najib cannot guarantee that Taib and his family will not adopt a more aggressive approach towards maximising their remaining period in office and hence, increase the rate of land grabs, dam building and oil palm estate expansion which may lead to the BN losing more votes from the Dayak community, where, according to my calculations shown earlier, such a swing had already taken place in this state election.

For Pakatan, and especially the DAP, Taib stepping down will deprive the opposition coalition of a central focal point for future campaigns, in the upcoming general election and in the next state election. If this happens, the best the opposition can hope for is for there to be a serious leadership tussle within PBB that would lead to a faction breaking off from this linchpin party of Sarawak BN.

My best guess is that the status quo will prevail until at least the next general election. The question which remains is what Taib will do to regain back some of the lost NMB vote since it will be hard for him to win back a significant number of Chinese votes.

Under this scenario, the BN will have to make up for the additional three to four parliamentary seats it will lose in the urban areas in Sarawak in the next general election by winning back more seats in Peninsular Malaysia in order to regain the two-thirds parliamentary majority.

Will SUPP become another Gerakan?

Prior to this election, there was already speculation that the SUPP was in danger of turning into a Gerakan – a Chinese-based party being wiped out in the only state which it has a significant political presence in. After April 16, SUPP’s worst fears were confirmed.

If not for the presence of postal votes in the Senadin seat in Miri, SUPP would have been left with only one Chinese state assemblyperson, Wong Soon Koh (right), who managed to achieve a relatively comfortable 1,800 vote majority in the 33 percent Iban seat of Bawang Assan in Sibu.

Fortunately for SUPP, BN still holds the reins of power in Sarawak and the state elections are held separately from the parliamentary elections which mean that its parliamentary representatives in the Chinese-majority seats of Stampin, Lanang, Sarikei and Miri did not lose their seats.

SUPP’s political representation in Sarawak has not been completely erased, unlike Gerakan’s presence in Penang after March 2008.

But still, the oldest political party in Sarawak will face an uphill task in trying to renew and rejuvenate itself, a promise which SUPP president Dr George Chan (right) failed to deliver following a smaller setback in the 2006 state election.

Gerakan’s ‘recovery’ efforts do not bode well for SUPP. Because of established hierarchical structures, it is hard to catapult fresh faces into positions of prominence. Without a strong leader, factional infighting becomes more pronounced and often spills into the public arena as demonstrated by the vote of no-confidence initiated against Penang Gerakan chief Teng Hock Nan’s leadership.

The more politically idealistic, especially the younger generation, would prefer to join the DAP rather than a component party in the BN. SUPP can expect to go through the same struggles which Gerakan has experienced and is currently experiencing in Peninsular Malaysia.

In addition, SUPP has to attempt to chart a new course for the party in light of the new reality of having more Iban than Chinese state assemblypersons within its ranks. Is it realistic to expect these Iban state assemblypersons to move up the ranks of leadership within what is still very much a Chinese-based party?

SUPP’s best hope, in the near term, is that the Chinese swing against the BN will not be as large in the general election therefore allowing it to keep one or two of the six Chinese-majority parliamentary seats in Sarawak. The renewal and rejuvenation process will take much longer to occur, if it happens at all.

The rise of the Dayak parties

Perhaps the biggest beneficiaries within the BN as a result of SUPP’s losses are the two Dayak-based parties – PRS and SPDP. PRS and SPDP now have eight and six seats respectively in the state assembly and there has already been some discussion on the appointment of an Iban deputy chief minister from one of these two parties, likely to be PRS president James Masing.

If Masing is indeed appointed as the DCM 2, it may pave the way for the much discussed merger between PRS and SPDP. Such a merger would be a double-edge sword for the BN in Sarawak.

A strengthened Dayak-based party arising from this merger may be a solution towards stemming any further slide in the level of BN support among the Ibans and the Bidayuhs. But this party could also prove to be a threat to PBB if there emerges pressure from within the state to have a Dayak chief minister after Taib steps down.

The strategy of divide and conquer, employed so effectively in the past to weaken Dayak representation and power in the state government, would work less well if there is only one Dayak party in the BN in Sarawak and in the context of a weakened SUPP, which can no longer collaborate as effectively with the PBB to weaken and divide the Dayaks.

It would not be too far-fetched to imagine that some of the SUPP Dayak state representatives would be tempted to join this merged entity if the interests of the Dayak community could be further advanced (and if they can aspire to a higher office than what the SUPP could offer them).

While Taib is publicly supportive of such a move, the greater likelihood is that he prefers the status quo of a divided Dayak representation within the BN in Sarawak.

What next for the DAP?

Having won 12 out of the 15 seats it contested in, what is next for the largest opposition party in Sarawak? The gains made by the DAP in each of the major cities in Sarawak – Kuching, Sibu, Sarikei, Bintulu and Miri, firmly cements its position as a national party with a strong opposition presence in most of the urban areas in Malaysia and as part of the state government in Penang and Selangor.

When the dust has settled (and it is settling very fast), the DAP will find that it faces a number of major challenges with its expanded representation in Sarawak. Firstly, it will have to beef up its local machinery in anticipation of the general election where it can win four more parliamentary seats, based on the state election results. But it will have to do this without the significant support system from Peninsular Malaysia that was present during the state election.

This can be achieved by leveraging on the ability of the new state assemblypersons to build and mobilise their own electoral machines. It has to strike while the iron is still hot and while the luster of the successful campaign still remains by recruiting volunteers and signing up new members.

The party should also seriously consider bringing in some fresh faces to contest in the urban parliamentary seats which the DAP stands a very good chance of winning, namely Stampin, Sarikei, Lanang and Miri.

By doing this, the party can broaden its base and build up a new generation of younger leaders to lead the party. This model was successfully adopted in Piasau where former president of the MCA Overseas Club Ling Sie Kiong (left) joined the DAP and achieved the role of a giant killer by defeating the SUPP president.

Secondly, it will have to minimise the pernicious effects of regional factionalism when it comes to competing for positions within the DAP state leadership. Some of the ill effects of these internal fights have been experienced by the DAP in Perak and Selangor, for example, but because of the dispersion of the DAP representatives in the different cities across the state, the likelihood of regional cliques and power bases forming is much greater. SUPP’s experience is a testament of this phenomenon.

Thirdly, the DAP needs to find creative ways to reach out to the Dayak voters in the out-of-town areas as part of a larger process of penetrating BN Dayak strongholds. The party can use its organisational and financial resources in the major cities to help PKR candidates who are working the ground outside these cities. And it can also consider reaching out to these areas more directly, especially if credible Dayak leaders can be attracted to join the party.

The recent proposal by DAP’s Lim Kit Siang for the party to merge with Snap is particularly noteworthy since it can potentially break open new ground for both parties.

Aspiring Dayak politicians who have seen and perhaps experienced Snap’s disastrous electoral performance may find the DAP to be a more suitable avenue to make a political impact. They would be following in the footsteps of DAP’s Leon Donald, who contested in the Iban-majority seat of Simanggang and managed to decrease BN’s share of the popular by almost 17 percent.

Can PKR penetrate the interiors?

The last-minute selection of candidates and the burden of contesting in 49 state seats certainly diluted the effectiveness of PKR’s overall campaign in Sarawak.

Although PKR managed to win only three of these seats, the fact that they won more votes than Snap candidates in 25 overlapping seats dispels the myth that PKR is seen as a Peninsular-based party that cannot do better than a ‘local’ Sarawakian party like Snap. But this silver lining has to be backed up by continual on-the-ground efforts.

In a post-election environment, it is very likely that only a handful of PKR candidates will continue to work the ground in order to build up the support base for the opposition in the next general and state election. The challenge then for the PKR state leadership is to ascertain which among the candidates fielded are dedicated to the political struggle against the BN in Sarawak.

In areas where such dedicated candidates are found, help in the form of resources and manpower should be given. In areas with fly-by-night candidates, PKR should consider finding new possible candidates and asking them to work the ground in order to earn the right to compete in the next general or state election.

Because of resource constraints, it would make sense for PKR to cede some of these seats to DAP, especially if the DAP is successful in attracting a few credible Iban leaders to join its ranks.

Even if PKR competes in ‘only’ 44 seats and the DAP competes in 20, PKR can still claim the chief minister’s position if Pakatan as a whole manages to win a majority of state seats especially if such an arrangement was agreed upon by Pakatan beforehand.

The leadership of PKR in Sarawak also has to deal with the challenge of managing the conflict between the various factions within the party in the state. The question of why a Lun Bawang, in the person of Baru Bian, should lead the state leadership rather than a Dayak leader will continue to be whispered within the PKR ranks in Sarawak.

This is a challenge which Baru must overcome with minimal interference from PKR in Peninsular Malaysia. At the same time, Baru must also realise that without a strong and charismatic Dayak leader within the ranks of PKR in Sarawak, it would be hard for the party to convince more Dayak voters to support it.

Dynamics between DAP and PKR

While DAP and PKR managed to avoid three-cornered fights (which wasn’t the case in the 2008 general election), the seat negotiation process revealed many frayed tensions between the two parties and may have affected electoral preparations in some of the disputed seats.

The next big test for both parties would be in the negotiations over the distribution of parliamentary seats in Sarawak in the next general election. It would not be easy for PKR to lay claim to any of the winnable Chinese-majority urban seats because of DAP’s stronger position and brand name in these areas.

In response, PKR may be tempted to reject demands by DAP to contest in some Iban-majority seats where it has Iban leaders. A possible compromise would be for the DAP to exchange a Chinese-majority seat in an area with a strong PKR local leader (Miri’s Michael Teo comes to mind) with a few of the tougher Iban-majority areas which the DAP can ‘invest’ in not just for the general election but also for the next state election.

The point here is that the sooner the seat negotiations are concluded, the more time the potential candidates and their parties have to get ready their elections machinery for these areas.

Possible scenarios for both sides

Before I conclude, I shall outline what I think will be the best case political scenarios for the BN and for Pakatan leading up to the next state election. The end result would probably be somewhere in between the best and worst possible outcomes for both these coalitions, but it is nonetheless instructive to evaluate the unlikely in order to contextualise the likely.

The coalition which is closer to the ideal scenario is likely to have the political advantage in the next state election.

Best-case scenario for the BN: Taib identifies a Malay successor who is acceptable to the PBB as well as to Umno. The case for Umno to enter Sarawak is weakened and the likelihood of serious strife within PBB is decreased significantly.

James Masing is named as the second DCM without too much protest from the PPB and SUPP. He manages to convince SPDP to merge with PRS but is careful not to threaten PBB’s dominant position within the BN in Sarawak.

SUPP elects Miri MP and Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water Peter Chin as its president. In the meantime, a fresh pool of candidates from different backgrounds, age groups and gender are identified and given the mandate and resources to work the ground in the urban areas. SUPP’s old guard does not protest but fades quietly into the background. Only two out of the four SUPP Chinese-majority parliamentary seats are lost in the next general election.

Best-case scenario for Pakatan: The DAP quickly moves to expand its membership in the major cities. New volunteers step up to the plate including aspiring candidates who may be fielded in the next general election. Snap successfully merges with DAP and this encourages more Iban members and aspiring candidates to join the merged entity.

Approximately half of the PKR candidates continue to work the ground with some support given by the state leadership and by the DAP. Ali Biju, the newly-elected state assemblyperson for Krian, emerges as a Dayak PKR leader who can work well with Baru Bian.

Parliamentary seat negotiations with the DAP are concluded way in advance of the next general election. Credible candidates are identified and given sufficient time to prepare. PKR wins two or three parliamentary seats and DAP wins four or five. Pakatan wins 10 parliamentary seats in Sarawak.

As a concluding note, the gains made by the opposition in Sarawak would likely force Najib to postpone the general election to the end of this year, at the earliest, but more likely to early 2012.

The tough Sarawak battle means that the BN cannot assume that either Sabah or Sarawak can be considered fixed deposit seats in the next general election.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 April 2011, 2:44 pm and is filed under
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Did you hear about the Bidayuh who voted for DAP?

By
June Rubis

April 22, 2011

We were like a bad bar joke: two Bidayuhs, a Lun Bawang, an Iban, and two Malays walk into a DAP ceramah in Kuching. The crowd is mostly Chinese, and the speeches so far are all in Mandarin.

“I don’t understand what they are saying,” I complain to my fellow Bidayuh.

“Neither do we, and that is why we drink,” he replies, handing me a can of beer.

The next day is Election Day for Sarawak, and we, the motley crew representing the urban non-Chinese, cast our votes for DAP.

Times have changed for urban Sarawakians who all this while have embraced DAP as a home-grown party despite it having its origins in West Malaysia. We have seen the party struggle to grab a foothold in the state political arena for many decades.

It may be a Chinese-based party but for many of us urban voters, it represents the best possible choice for change of a state governance that we have grown weary of. Plus, you have to admit, their mascot is very cun.

Unsurprisingly, DAP has done very well in the urban areas (and 30,000 Ubah plush toys have sold out in less than two weeks), and soon everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon about how the Sarawak Chinese have rejected Barisan Nasional.

I jokingly tweet about feeling neglected as an urban Dayak who had voted for “ubah”, and how the Chinese are getting all the credit.

And then, it starts to get a bit nasty. The Chinese community in Sarawak are accused of rejecting multi-racialism. Seriously?

I ask you, pick any Sarawak Chinese and ask them whether they have indigenous relatives, either by blood or marriage, and they will answer you in the affirmative. Sarawakians are a plural society, and we are proud of it. We may identify ourselves as Chinese, Bidayuh or Lun Bawang but at the heart of it, we are always Sarawakians first.

Blaming the divide between the urban and rural votes in the state election on race is lazy analysis.

It is all too easy to blame a group of people — either the Chinese for “rejecting multi-racialism” and voting for DAP, or the rural indigenous population for being “short-sighted, and naive” and voting for BN — than to acknowledge the real issues on the ground.

Let us put aside, for now, the obvious vote-buying, intimidation, trickery and unfairness during the electoral process that we all know happened during the election.

What we have to acknowledge and try to understand is that for the most part, the rural population still identify and support BN as the only genuine state government. Dismissing the voting results from the rural areas to the corruption process is simplistic and lazy because it absolves do-gooders from having to go on the ground, and try to understand why the rural peoples feel beholden to BN. We need to go beyond tweeting/facebooking/blogging about our outrage of the state election results.

Years of indoctrination cannot be undone in one state election, yet please do not mistake me for being dismissive about the results.

As a Sarawakian who has lived most of her life in this state, I am quite happy with the outcome. We may not have the government that we had hoped for but yet 45 per cent of my fellow Sarawakians voted for a change of government.

And this has given me hope.

I acknowledge that Pakatan Rakyat has given Sarawak a collective hope that we have not seen in years. That a change of government is indeed possible.

It is not the fiery speeches from the ceramahs that has inspired me per se, but the thousands of my people — Chinese, Bidayuh, Melanau, Iban, Malay — that came out despite the fear of being seen as “opposition”.

And now we, urbanites of Sarawak, ARE the opposition. There is some beauty in this.

For those two short weeks of intense campaigning, I would hope that those who came from West Malaysia with the genuine intent to help Sarawak, had a quick glimpse at what we have lived with for the past 30 years. You may not understand why we see things the way we do, but I do hope that this is the beginning of what will be a long process of trying to understand and help.

To my fellow Sarawakians who were outraged with how our brothers and sisters came from West Malaysia with their own ideas of doing things, let us at least acknowledge that their abrasiveness, lack of protocol, enthusiasm, and yes, naiveté, of how things work in Sarawak, and overcome our own inhibitions of “this is just how things are”. They helped us get our voices back. Their speeches, while at times biased towards West Malaysian issues, inspired us so that we too can speak out, loud and proud, and not be afraid. And yes, a lot of us were afraid for many years.

Instead of being angry and outraged at the huge interest in Sarawak, let us use this to inspire ourselves to be more involved in our state issues.

We do not like how the West Malaysians are doing things? Then let us lead the way.

Let us find the humility that there are still things we need to learn. Do not worry about the condescension that they sometimes show towards us. I am beginning to realise lately that it is more of their reflection of fear and confusion than anything else.

There is so much to do for Sarawak, on the political and civil society front, and we have to realise that it starts with us Sarawakians, but we do not have to do it alone.

And maybe, one day, we can move on beyond being a bad bar joke, and prove to the rest of the country that when we cast our votes, we indeed cast our votes for the representatives that we felt were best suited for the job, and not because of the colour of her skin.

* June is very sad that she did not manage to get an Ubah plush toy.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 April 2011, 5:16 pm and is filed under
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Longing For A Free Mind (Part 7 of 14)

By
M. Bakri Musa

Avoiding Being Entrapped Mentally

Once we have adapted to our new open world, we need to reflect on how was it that we were under the coconut shell in the first place.  More importantly, how do we prevent ourselves from being entrapped again?  Can we inoculate ourselves against such a terrible fate?

            As we contemplate these issues, it is well to be reminded of two major insights of modern neuroscience.  One is the remarkable plasticity of the human brain, its almost infinite capacity to adapt and learn.  The other, almost as the counterpoint, is the concept of, “Use it or lose it!”  That is, if we do not exercise a particular mental faculty we will lose it, and much sooner than we expect.  Thus if we do not exercise our free mind and critical faculty, our mind will inevitably become captive, or “un-free” and uncritical, blindly accepting everything thrown our way; our coconut shell again engulfing us.

            This “use it or lose it” truism is illustrated by the “lazy eye” syndrome of childhood.  Here we have one eye – the lazy one – which because of weakness of its muscles or some other problem sends imperfect images to the brain.  The brain, to avoid confusion with the images from the good eye, learns to ignore those faulty images.  With time the neural pathway from that lazy eye to the brain will atrophy from disuse, and you will get what is called “optical blindness” of that eye.  There is nothing anatomically wrong with the lazy eye, at least as an imaging system, it is just that the brain has effectively ignored it, and now that eye is “lost” or blind to the brain.

            Effective treatment must begin early before the atrophy of this neural pathway and optical blindness sets in.  It involves patching the good eye so as to force the brain to decipher the images transmitted by the “lazy” eye.  Meaning, create the neural pathway, and once that is well established, the patch can then be removed from the good eye.

            This “use is or lose it” principle also applies to human nature.  It is this that worries me most about our obsession with special privileges.  Whatever noble intentions our forefathers may have had when they included those provisions in our constitution, there is no denying that these privileges have now eroded our competitiveness.  As we have not had to use that faculty, we have lost it.  Today we are led to believe that we need not learn English or strive hard in order to succeed.  Special privileges have ingrained in us the expectation that our government will always provide for us by virtue of the fact that we are Malays.

            Special privileges have now degenerated to become an end unto themselves instead of being the means towards an end, of making Malays competitive.  We are less concerned with the results and more with the process.

            This is the powerfully destructive effect of Ketuanan Melayu.  It has hooked and narcotized us.  These privileges have blunted our competitiveness, corrupted our community, and degraded our maruah (values).  We are fast being reduced to being wards of the state.  It is difficult to hold your head high when you are in that state.

            Worse, we transmit these destructive values to our children and grandchildren, effectively condemning them to perpetual enslavement, as generations before and following Sobi and Inah in Pramoedya’s Djongos dan Babu.

            We delude ourselves into thinking that with Ketuanan Melayu we are destined to be Tuans (masters) of Tanah Melayu (Malay Land).  We need not strive; it is our destiny, presumably ordained by Allah.  Others have no such delusion; they have to work hard.  Consequently a just and fair Allah has rewarded them amply, they have now become the de facto (matter of fact) Tuans of Tanah Melayu.

            Meanwhile Malays, especially our leaders, are reduced to howling like a fox in the middle of the night proclaiming endlessly that we are still the de jur (by force of law) Tuans of Tanah Melayu.  Read the constitution, they howled!

            Before non-Malays feel superiorly smug, let me assure them that this weakness is not unique to Malays.  It is a universal attribute.  In China, those princelings of the Politburo members do not have to work hard either.  They too have their future laid out on a red carpet, with guarantees of privatized state enterprises and fat government contracts.  Westerners used to generous social safety net of their modern welfare state have lost their ability to compete with eager and hungry competitors from emerging countries.  The elaborate safety net of Western societies, crafted with the noblest of intentions, has now degenerated into a comfortable hammock.

            A secure safety net emboldens us to strive for new heights; a comfortable hammock tempts us to doze off the afternoon.  This is a lesson particularly difficult to learn, especially by our leaders.

            There is a bright side, in the form of the other insight from neuroscience:  the remarkable plasticity of our brain.  The human character too is likewise, ready to adapt to new realities, given the chance.  Consider our recent history.

            Malays were once known for our political apathy and placidity.  We were not even interested in running the affairs of our country; we left that to the colonialists.  Our sultans gladly sold out our country and heritage to the British through the Malayan Union agreement in return for pittance in royal allowances and glorified titles of some ancient English order.

            Yet under the enlightened leadership of Datuk Onn, we were transformed.  We successfully rescinded that obnoxious treaty, despite the sultans having already signed it.  Today, politics is in the veins of every Malay, a remarkable cultural transformation in so short of time.  Perversely today we are at the other extreme, with politics seducing and infecting many promising Malay talents, thwarting their personal and professional development.

            I will return to Datuk Onn later.  For now, suffice to say that although he was a civil servant under the colonialists, it did not stop him from having a free mind.  He was anything but menuggu arahan (awaiting orders) from his British superiors.

            Contrast Onn’s free-mindedness to today’s leaders.  To a person they are nothing but Pak and Mak Turuts (“me too” leaders).  A generation under the mercurial Mahathir, and they have lost their critical faculties.  Do not expect greatness from them.  Mahathir has long exited the political stage, yet Prime Minister Najib behaves like a poorly-trained lap dog eagerly awaiting its trainer’s approval.

            We might be tempted to blame our leaders, and only them, for our current travails.  Certainly, reading the current commentaries one could easily conclude that all our problems are due to the shortcomings of our leaders, in particular Mahathir.  We conveniently forget that leaders must have followers.

            We deserve the leaders we get; after all we voted them in.  However, our responsibilities as followers do not end there.  Saddam Hussein did not become the tyrant that he was overnight; nor did Robert Mugabe become obscenely corrupt the day he assumed power.  I am certain that both started out with the noblest of intentions.  Somewhere along the line their followers allowed them to get away with some minor transgressions; these leaders then became emboldened.  The slide towards monstrosity was thus greased.

            Today I hear many severe critics of Mahathir and Abdullah Badawi, including some senior UMNO members and respected academics.  Where were they when the nation desperately needed some checks and balances?

            Pramoedya Ananta Toer, criticizing his own “Javanism,” observed that it is this unthinking loyalty and blind obedience to a superior that eventually leads to fascism.  Pramoedya knew a thing or two about fascism, having been its victim under Suharto’s “Ode Baru” (New Order).

            Observe this picture of Minister Rais Yatim bowing deeply to kiss Prime Minister Abdullah’s hand.  Also, notice Abdullah’s oblivious smirk and nonchalant gaze directed elsewhere.  Is this a display of abiding respect or obsequious loyalty?

            Judging from this behavioral display, do you expect Rais to voice his concerns should Abdullah be tempted to do something stupid?  This was how Saddam Hussein evolved to be the monster that he was because he had a team full of characters like Rais Yatim, more concerned with showering fealty to their leader than keeping him in check.  The body language displayed by Abdullah in this picture bespeaks of, to use the language of the street, “I’ve got you by your balls!”

            Regardless of the cultural component, this is not the way to demonstrate respect.  Instead, do your job well and you bring credit not only to your superior but also yourself.  That is how you show respect for your leader.  Another would be not to embarrass him by for example, your less-than-exemplary behaviors in public or private.

            Rais’s personal behaviors towards his domestic help, now widely reported by the international wire services as the consequence of the Wiki leaks, brought disrepute not only to himself but also Prime Ministers Abdullah and Najib; indeed the whole nation.  Rais has since denied the lurid accusation but he has not addressed the maid’s leaving.

            There was another Wiki leak where senior Singapore officials disparaged Malaysian leaders and bragged about having “physical evidence” implicating Anwar Ibrahim, then Deputy Prime Minister, in his alleged sex crime.  In both this and the Rais maid scandal, no one bothered to look at the underlying apparent breaches of national security.  How reliable is our national security apparatus such that secret “physical evidence” concerning a Deputy Prime Minister could land in foreign hands, or the ease with which ministers could be potentially blackmailed?  Imagine if those maids had been recruited by intelligence units of unfriendly foreign governments!

            So far no leader has shown awareness much less addressed this critical issue.  Such is the quality of our current leaders!  This is also good point to transition to the next topic, the mind of a future leader.

Next:   The Mind of A Future Leader

[
Presented at the Fifth Annual Alif Ba Ta Conference at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, organized by UMNO Club of New York-New Jersey, January 29, 2011.
]

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 April 2011, 5:00 am and is filed under
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On suggestion of possible DAP-SNAP merger (2)

Three days ago, I had
said
:

“In the 13th national general elections, we should avoid any multi-cornered contests which can only benefit the Barisan Nasional and for this reason, I would even suggest that DAP and SNAP should seriously consider a merger of the two political parties to accelerate Iban/Dayak political awakening following the 416 Sarawak general elections.”

There have been different responses, both pro and con, to the suggestion that DAP and SNAP seriously consider a merger of the two parties, which are beneficial references and guides to political workers in Sarawak and Malaysia.

Veteran journalist
Terence Netto
 described  the idea of a merger between DAP and Snap as “one of the more stimulating propositions to emerge in recent times”.

There are also critics who oppose the idea painting its prospects in the most pessimistic terms.

There have also been reactions from the political players.

SNAP leaders for instance have been reported by the media as pouring cold water on the idea while the Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian has asked for clarification

Firstly, the idea of a proposed merger between DAP and SNAP would not take off if the SNAP leadership are opposed to it.

Secondly, my suggestion of a possible merger of DAP and SNAP to accelerate Iban/Dayak political awakening following the 416 Sarawak general elections and to avoid multi-cornered contests in the 13th general elections is just that, a suggestion.

I have not yet taken it up with  the Sarawak state leadership and the DAP central executive committee.

I welcome reactions to the idea of a merger between DAP and SNAP as one response to the new Sarawak political scenario after the 416 Sarawak state elections.

Baru Bian and Pakatan Rakyat leaders in PKR and PAS can be rest assured that we are on common ground in wanting to ensure that the “stable coherence” of PR in Sarawak  must be upheld, protected, promoted and advanced at all times  and that it should not be undermined in any form.

I will take the opportunity of my visit to Sibu tomorrow to discuss the idea with Sarawak DAP leaders and I welcome further comments to my suggestion of a possible merger between DAP and SNAP to better prepare for the new political challenges post-416 before deciding whether to pursue it further in DAP and Pakatan Rakyat.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 April 2011, 5:55 am and is filed under
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Postal votes which are never posted

By
 Ivy Kwek

APRIL 22 — Having acted as a coordinator for polling and counting agents for the Opposition campaign in the recently concluded Sarawak state election has made me more confused about the rationale of the electoral system in Malaysia, in particular with regard to postal voting.

Under Malaysian election laws, postal voting is mainly allowed for police personnel, members of the armed forces and Election Commission workers who are on duty on polling day. Six days before polling day, postal votes will be issued through a procedure which can be witnessed by agents from all contesting parties. The ballot papers are inserted into envelopes with an acknowledgment form attached to be ‘posted’ to the voters concerned. (*Source: Brian Moh/The Star)

Don’t be fooled by the name, though. In actual fact, only a very small number of overseas votes are sent by post. The postal votes for police personnel and members of the armed forces are dispatched by police and military officials respectively to designated police stations and army camps, whereas Election Commission workers are required to collect their own postal votes from the issuing centre.

Upon arrival at the issuing centre, the EC workers have a choice of either voting on-the-spot (a polling station a la the normal voting procedure will be set up for them), or to take the ballot papers back and return them later. The postal voting station will be open for six days until polling day.

Questions which immediately arise are: if the EC workers can come in person to collect their postal votes, why can’t they just vote on-the-spot under the normal voting procedure? Why the additional choice of issuing ballot papers in envelopes which involves more steps and makes the system more prone to abuse? Why should the EC workers be allowed to bring the ballot papers back while ordinary voters do not enjoy this privilege? Why do they need six days to return the ballot papers? Is it to wait for God’s vision of who to vote for?

Such is the leniency given by the EC to postal voters. Not only did police personnel and members of the armed forces enjoy the privilege of casting postal votes, it was also extended to their spouses! Meanwhile, Malaysians abroad do not have such luck.

In addition to that, a registered voter who is eligible for postal voting can apply to be a postal voter up until 3pm the day before polling day. This is to say that less than 24 hours is required for the EC to process the application. Doesn’t such efficiency sound all too ridiculously amazing considering that the EC needs three to six months to process the registration of an ordinary voter like you and I?

The EC’s decisions caused the number of postal voters to skyrocket in the last few days before the Sarawak State Elections, as can be seen in the constituency of Kota Sentosa (Kuching), which saw an increase from 1,800 postal voters to a whopping 3,000 and Pelawan (Sibu) from 14 voters to about 300 voters. As party workers, we had no choice but to compare the list of newly-added postal voters with the electoral roll and cross out the names of the postal voters from the electoral roll in order to prevent double-voting, and to be sleep-deprived in the process!

Postal votes can be regarded as a ‘fixed deposit’ for the incumbent government. This can be seen in the constituency of Senadin, where the PKR candidate was leading by a substantial number of votes but was eventually overcome by postal votes in favour of the BN candidate, causing the PKR candidate to lose the election by a mere 58 votes. In Dudong, one of constituencies in which the DAP contested, the election battle with SUPP, the other party contesting the seat, was close. The counting of the votes was a very tensed affair until, at least for a short while, the DAP finally took the lead by about a thousand votes. At that time, the counting of postal votes — which numbered about 700 in that constituency — had yet to be completed. Just as the DAP was about to celebrate its unofficial victory, a blackout occurred in the counting centre of the postal votes (one can only guess what can happen to the ballot papers in the dark!). Fortunately, the matter was resolved amicably between the leaders of both parties without unnecessary chaos.

Postal votes also make vote-buying easier, as its complicated process is more prone to loopholes and abuses. As the ballot paper can be taken out of the voting station unlike normal voting, it is easy for the voter to show an ‘interested party’ his or her vote in return for a monetary reward. On the second day after the postal votes were issued, a DAP polling agent in Sibu caught on video a group of people purportedly involved in vote-buying. A man was seen giving three or four ladies orange papers similar to postal ballot papers along a building staircase. When they realised that the ‘transaction’ was being recorded, they quickly dispersed into the crowd. Although the ladies later denied any wrongdoing when contacted, their actions remain highly suspect and demonstrate the vulnerability of the system.

Party workers need to go along with the ridiculous system and try their very best to prevent any dirty tricks. In Sarawak, agents were sent to postal voting centres to ensure that postal votes were issued according to the official list. They stayed at these centres from 8am to 5pm for six days to ensure that the votes were picked up by the voters themselves and to stare at the ballot box to make sure that it was not moved or stuffed with extra papers. For those votes that are despatched to army camps or police stations, they tailed the car escorting the ballot boxes to ensure that the boxes did not get ‘lost’ along the way.

But that is only as much as we can do. Until the Election Commission decides to get smarter, we will all need to do it the brain-less way. — loyaburok.com

* Ivy Kwek was part of the DAP Sibu’s campaign for two weeks and still has some trouble adjusting to the KL driving manners.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 April 2011, 6:27 pm and is filed under
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Sarbaini’s kin not satisfied, wants police to reveal the truth

By
Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani

April 22, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, April 22 — The family of dead Customs official Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamed are dissatisfied with police investigations and claim his death is being covered up.

They also want to know the “real story” behind his death plunge at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office here on April 6 — the second such case in an anti-graft office.

“We know that the late Ahmad Sarbaini fell from a high place but what caused him to fall? What caused his death?” asked a family member who declined to be named.

“Because from what I understand is that if someone falls from the third floor then the person will only suffer from broken bones but will not die from it,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

Police said yesterday that the Selangor Customs assistant director died from head injuries due to the fall at the MACC building in Cheras.

Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Zulkifli Abdullah told reporters that it was now up to the Attorney-General to decide on the next course of action.

But the family said the police details were sketchy.

“The family questions why the investigation was not thorough. It is like they are trying to hide something.

“We are wondering if this story will just end like this. We are not satisfied with the results of the investigation and still want to know what happened. We want the real story,” the family source told The Malaysian Insider.

The source added that the family wants to know if Ahmad Sarbaini did fall or whether he was pushed from the third floor.

“That is why we want to know what happened. Why did he fall? Is true that he fell from the third floor or was he pushed?” he said.

MACC investigations director Datuk Mustafar Ali had said that Ahmad Sarbaini returned to the MACC building at 8.26am that day without an appointment and had requested to meet the investigation officer without stating why.

Ahmad Sarbaini had already given his statement to MACC and was released from custody at 12.30pm on April 2.

He had been remanded on March 29 following an MACC-led swoop on a Customs syndicate that it said was worth at least RM3 billion in unpaid taxes, resulting in the arrest of 62 officers.

Mustafar said an officer then accompanied Ahmad Sarbaini to a room in the office before leaving to collect the case file, but found him missing when he returned.

Ahmad Sarbaini’s body was later found on the badminton court on the first floor, but his friends have said it was impossible that he had committed suicide over the MACC investigations.

His family has said that it may sue the MACC if police investigations into his death do not favour the family.

The incident was a major blow to the anti-graft body’s credibility as it is already in the middle of a royal commission of inquiry into the mysterious death of DAP political aide Teoh Beng Hock outside a MACC office in 2009.

Teoh, 30, had plunged from the then-Selangor MACC headquarters on the 14th floor of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009 after he was questioned overnight by anti-graft officers.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 April 2011, 10:50 am and is filed under
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Sweet and sour aftermath of S’wak polls

By
Bridget Welsh

The Sarawak polls are over and the attention is now on assessing its implications at both the state and national levels. Much attention has focused on predictions for the next general elections, with the range of possible dates moving from a few months to further postponement until 2013.

My own view remains that there needs to be some time before the national election machinery is in place again, given the challenges that have emerged from the Sarawak campaign and that anything held this year would be too risky for the BN.

The political terrain is now more uncertain. In this vein, this article examines the immediate political implications, the “sweet” and “sour” challenges that the BN has to face in the wake of the state polls. Tomorrow’s piece will examine the implications for Pakatan Rakyat.

The Sarawak results indicate that the BN has suffered a serious bruising and will have to make hard decisions to improve its performance in the next general election.

Taib the victor (and loser)

Arguably, Chief Minister Taib Mahmud emerged as the single strongest beneficiary from the results. The retention of the two-thirds majority without a single loss in his party, the PBB, have bought him time to choose his own successor. The two-thirds majority also allows him to control debate in the state assembly and eventually depart on his own terms

At the same time, it has been made clear that Taib will face increasing pressure to step down, and will unlikely to able to lead BN into another election. As the main issue in the campaign, he has been severely discredited personally, and will face an extremely challenging task of rebuilding his reputation and salvaging his legacy.

The allegations in the Sarawak Report website have transformed attitudes of Malaysia’s longest serving chief minister in a manner in which there is no going back. Taib has survived, but he faces a more contentious political environment than ever before.

He also faces a difficult decision – on who to appoint as his successor as there are a number of contenders in the ring, with Abang Johari Abang Openg leading the way. Taib will have to manage the growing internal party competition to take over the reins and to limit infighting in his own party, some of whom are concerned with the transition of power.

Issues such as the role of Taib’s family interests, the dynamic between Malays and Melanaus and perceived need for strong leadership within the BN camp are now being openly discussed.

Taib, perhaps arguably one of Malaysia’s most experienced politicians, will be navigating these issues without the benefit of time and will come under even greater scrutiny.

An uncomfortable federal-state tension

The Sarawak election results also place Prime Minister Najib Razak in a difficult position. It is clear that during the polls

With the results matching the number of seats lost in 1987 and showing swings across ethnicities both back and away from BN, Najib faces a difficult choice on how much pressure to put on Taib to turn over power.

Keeping Taib in power too long will be a guarantee that the fixed deposit, already no longer secure, could be lost altogether, and Najib’s own tenure might be at risk. This is not an easy decision for the PM.

Federal-state relations with Sabah and Sarawak are never easy, and arguably the open rift and conflicting interests make for difficult times ahead. The interesting dimension of this is that the rift was public rather than private, and is likely to be even more public given the growing national prominence of Sarawak.

Managing Sarawak’s ‘hot’ issues nationally

If navigating the transition of power in Sarawak was not enough, Najib faces two serious policy headaches.

The first is to address the increasing prominence of corruption. After Taib’s tenure, this was perhaps the anchor of the opposition campaign, and it has now reemerged centre stage in the opposition campaign, forging a common agenda among opposition parties.

Najib has a choice to make on whether he will actively address corruption substantively or allow this issue to build further political momentum. Many calls are already been made for him to act on the issues raised by Sarawak Report.

Moreover, the recent tragic death of Customs officer Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed while in Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s custody, which occurred during the Sarawak campaign has only served to bring additional spotlights on the need for more effective tools to improve anti-corruption governance.

If addressing corruption was not difficult enough, Najib is facing an even more challenging politics of religion in Malaysia as he continues to find a balance between the freedom and equality of all religions and the calls for the primacy of Islam over the rights of other communities.

With the issues of the Bible and the use of Malay terms such as ‘Allah’ in religious texts still unresolved and numerous legal cases outstanding, finding the right balance between communities is hard as groups on all sides are not satisfied with how the matters have been handled.

More pressure to assure electoral integrity

Even more important for the election process is the Election Commission, which reports to the prime minister. By any standard, its performance was below par and did not match the professionalism that the EC is capable of.

The Sarawak electoral process was tainted – from the black-out in Senadin (right) during vote-counting to the last-minute influx of postal voters and the failure to share legal documentation (Borang 14) with all sides. These reports do not reflect well on the integrity of the electoral process.

The EC is now on the defensive, and will need to work to assure voters that it can operate with greater professionalism. Now with the examples of electoral problems fresh in the media, this issue will serve to mobilise civil society as it did in 2007.

What has permeated even further is the sense that the BN is relying more on vote-buying than on its record for political support. This perception has deepened post-Sarawak 2011 polls given the reports of vote-buying coming even from the BN in the case of Pelagus. This practice does not reflect well on Najib himself.

A mandate that is bought, not earned, is less worthy. Arguably the use of money has increased to nationally unsustainable levels. What is missing here is the appreciation that patronage networks – grassroots connections of parties – are not working as they used to and this makes campaigning for the BN even more challenging. This issue is more serious in Peninsular Malaysia than in Sabah and Sarawak.

There is also the dynamic that given the competitiveness of the election, money is not going down to the ground as some fear that a loss of power is coming and they should protect themselves. Greed within the system is costing the system further. There is increasingly no guarantee when one relies on vote-buying for support.

Erosion of Chinese support

The loss of all its ‘safe’ seats was driven home to Sarawak’s grand old party, the SUPP. It was the hardest hit party within the BN in this election.

It is now riddled with further internal infighting over leadership and these squabbles over the spoils are preventing the serious issues of regeneration and reevaluation it needs for its own survival politically. Interests are blinding the actors to the broader political picture.

The party has to find a new direction and its leadership continues to remain resistant to change. What was sad to watch was SUPP’s dependence on Peninsular Malaysian leaders for strategy and guidance, as this party has lost its connection to the issues in Sarawak.

From the concern over children having to leave the state to find work to the fact that the business climate is increasingly unfavourable, SUPP has yet to channel the real concerns of its traditional base.

The further erosion of Chinese support from the BN has raised serious questions for the ruling coalition as a whole. Is this the fate which MCA is staring at? Will the 2006 losses that translated into further losses in 2011 be repeated in Peninsular Malaysia?

Signs are not promising for the BN Chinese component parties, as they are faced a two-prong attack – from their traditional supporters who are leaving them and from Umno comments that further alienate Chinese support.

The fact is that the old style of fear tactics – scaring the Chinese with threats of withdrawing financial contracts – is not working to the same degree. In part, this is because the Chinese are increasingly economically independent.

It is also that the BN has yet to provide concrete reasons for the Chinese to move back, as the Economic Transformation Programme and NEP (New Economic Policy) issues have not been adequately addressed for many non-Malays, Chinese and non-Malay bumiputeras alike.

While there are concerns among some for Chinese representation in the system, the incentives to return to the BN fold are lacking. Many Chinese Malaysians continue to find the opposition message of inclusion and fairer governance more attractive.

BN needs to regain momentum

In the wake of Sarawak polls, the BN momentum at the end of the 16 by-elections has slowed, and arguably has grinded to a halt. Unlike the by-election contests, especially from Hulu Selangor onwards, BN did not set the tone and direction of the Sarawak electoral campaign.

The BN has now moved from the offensive to the defensive. There is now more political uncertainty, and the reality is that when this happened, there is economic uncertainty as well. The task for regaining the momentum for BN is challenging indeed, especially given the increased tensions within the ruling coalition itself and the salience of national policy issues involving Sarawak.

In short, the bruises have left their mark on the BN and it will need time to heal before it steps back into the electoral ring.

Part 1 :
The myths of S’wak polls results

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 April 2011, 5:30 am and is filed under
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416: Sarawak, silent no more

By
Adrian Chew

APRIL 15 — “Ladies and gentlemen, I am now locked up in a handcuff that has taken a British mechanic five years to make. I do not know whether I am going to get out of it or not, but I can assure you I am going to do my best.” — Harry Houdini, London Hippodrome, St Patrick’s Day, 1904.

There’s something heavy in the air in the hornbill state.

Take a walk in any of the cities and towns and you’ll feel that undeniable sense of unity and common purpose.

Thousands upon thousands throng political ceramahs every night. Our placid roads turn into long crawling lines of red brake lights. Normally frugal womenfolk readily take out RM10 notes from their purses to insert into donation boxes. Heavy rains don’t deter thousands from coming and staying.

Sit in any coffee shop during the day and you’ll notice everyone’s an overnight political commentator and connoisseur of oratory. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the same gripes repeated at every table.

Years of pent-up anger and frustration are coming to a boil. People come to hear all their dissatisfaction with the present government finally verbalised. You’ll empathise because as much as these are our problems, you’ll see that they’re also yours.

This state election is unlike previous ones in Sarawak. It’s obvious that something’s afoot. There is a feeling of empowerment and camaraderie. Everyone feels infused with renewed energy and a single clear mission — Change. Demand It.

Our political awakening is coupled with deep-rooted frustration. And why wouldn’t we feel this way? After all, who isn’t affected by rampant corruption in the state? Who doesn’t notice the few who have and the many who don’t? Who doesn’t have issues related to land? Whose son or daughter needs to leave the state to get a decent education or find a better paying job? And whose children and grandchildren never came back after that?

Symbolic of the detachment between the current crop of leaders and the people, local politicians continue to pose for newspapers, pointing their fingers at clogged drains and potholes promising to fix them if re-elected. Land premiums will be lowered and there will be automatic renewals of land leases. “Floods will be a thing of the past because look, we’re raising road levels.” (never mind that the road is now the same level as your roof).

“This is a state election and these are the real Sarawak issues”, they assert. “Don’t be too concerned and influenced by Semenanjung issues.”

They’ll have us believe we’re a state unto ourselves and that what happens across the dividing sea has no effect on local affairs. And by focusing on the symptoms, hopefully we’ll forget the illness.

But we know better now.

Urban voters have come of age and can identify corruption and failure of governance as the main causes of these problems. We’re aware that the candidates we vote into the DUN or Parliament must be able to carry our voices and translate them into action. They must be capable of formulating policies that are far-sighted and beneficial to their electorates.

We want representatives who will work for us and solve our problems. Not create more.

If they’re elected in and must still sit on the opposition benches, then the least we can do is to make sure we send in those who dare to speak and speak up strongly because so often is it the case in Malaysia that pro-government wakil rakyat (people’s representatives) keep mute on issues that are closest to the people’s hearts.

We’re also very aware that the power structure here that keeps this illness untreated in the state is the same lifeline that enables the wanton abuse of power on the other side of the sea to go unchecked.

While Sarawak may not yet experience religious crackdowns, deteriorating racial relations or the stifling of civil political discourse now commonplace in the peninsula, if we keep quiet and acquiesce, it is only a matter of time before those scenes are seen here.

Already, we share a deeply entrenched culture of economic rent seeking and government-assisted monopolies that are bleeding our economy dry. Already too, there is open discontent and people expressing differing opinions to a government unaccustomed to listening.

The crisis we face today is real and it transcends state boundaries.

Money is being pumped into constructing infrastructures we don’t need. More dams and power supply than we know what to do with. For quick returns, we welcome more industries that pose environmental and health risks to our own population. More displacement of natives to make way for logging and plantation concessions. At every level, benefits go to a select few and seldom to the masses.

On our streets, crime is high. To make matters worse, those we entrust to keep us safe stand accused of brutality. A 15-year-old is gunned down after a car chase. There are deaths in lock-ups. People fall out of windows. Couples are arrested for celebrating Valentine’s Day. Courts, our last bastion of justice, are not seen to be dispensing basic fairness. Even lawyers talk about boycotting them.

Institutions that are supposed to protect us no longer function as such. How can you fault the ordinary Malaysian on the street for having no confidence in the government? We’ve come to the point where we’re begging for protection from all these institutions.

As if it’s not bad enough that we’ve failed ourselves, we’ve also failed our future generations by turning our education system into a farce with all the policy flip-flopping. In Sarawak, there are children entering secondary schools today who are unable to recite the alphabet or read simple words.

They can’t converse in Bahasa Malaysia much less English and speak only Iban in their classrooms. What do we do to address this problem? Certainly, spending more money on laptops and Internet connection isn’t the answer. We’re going everywhere except to the root of the problem.

The 85-year-old Bidayuh market stall owner I know in town speaks more fluent English than most of the schoolchildren today. It is the height of irony that a man who lived his best years under British colonial rule is better equipped today to deal with the challenges of the 21st century than his own grandchildren.

Even natives deep in rural Sarawak who make a deliberate choice to live a life of subsistence and not be bothered with all these issues are also not spared. Thousands have had their land taken from them and forced to defend their birth rights in an alien bureaucracy against corporations that have little care for what they’ve lost. Alone they stand for the state too has conspired against them.

Seek solace, you say? Grab your Bible and pray to God? You’ll only be reminded of another sad fact that our government is everywhere except the places it should be. Everything it does is a mass of contradictions.

What right-thinking Sarawakian can look around and still believe this nation is in good hands? Malaya’s ablaze. Sabah doesn’t even half belong to Sabahans anymore.

It’s obvious what needs to be done on 416. Something’s got to change.

So watch what we do. Soon enough your turn will come too.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 23 April 2011, 11:23 pm and is filed under
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An amazing experience in Singapore

7.00 am 18th April 2011-  Changi Airport

Having spent a great 4 days in Singapore, I was happily settled in the limousine on my way to the airport. I had made a special effort to get up early to leave the hotel by 6.30am (the Limousine chauffeur  Mr. Dean Ong was punctual on the dot) to be at the airport by 7.00am for my flight to Penang at 8.05 am.

As I was alighting I discovered to my horror I had left my laptop behind. Panic button activated! Mr. Dean made the decision for me by saying calmly “I will head  back for it”.

I proceeded to check in at the SilkAir Counter but was advised against it as I had check in luggage and it would be troublesome if I were to change flight. Wait for confirmation of retrieval of laptop and whether it could be delivered in time for me to check in at 7.15 am latest.

Immediate priority was to contact Hotel (oh dear no telephone contact with me), so I proceeded to look for ‘ Information Counter”. I happened to sport  a lady wearing an uniform (bright orangy red top and purple skirt ) and holding a tablet. She  looks likely to be airport official. I approached her , told her my predicament and my need for the  contact number of  Marina Mandarin Hotel. She promptly access the internet, found what I wanted and connected me to the hotel using her handphone. (At this point I didn’t who she was.)

The Hotel staff was most professional and efficient and the person at the concierge knew exactly when I left the hotel in a white limousine  (he even knew the car number plate!). I told him that I had left my laptop behind but I did not know where. He could look for it in the room, reception, restaurant and the concierge urgently and keep it with him for the chauffeur Mr. Dean Ong to collect it. There was no time to lose as I have to board the plane by 7.55 am at the latest. He agreed without a murmur and said he would try his best.

Ira (the airport personnel ) was in close contact with Mr. Dean Ong via the handphone. Mr. Ong by now had got hold of the laptop and was on the way back ( estimated time 15-20 mins because as luck would have it there was no traffic jam bearing in mind that 7.15am is peak time). She asked me to proceed to check in, clear immigration and wait for her at the departure gate  while she waited for Mr. Ong to return. She would  rushed the laptop to me at the departure gate!

Received a call from Hotel staff that my laptop (some verification on my part to make sure that it was indeed my property ) had been given to Mr. Ong.

In the meantime I was escorted by another lady in the same uniform past the immigration and to the departure gate where I duly informed the officer in charge of the situation.

Joy of joys when Ira gave me the laptop in the nick of time and I couldn’t resist giving her a bear hug.

I was the last to board the plane on scheduled time.

I am truly impressed with the honesty, kindness and efficiency of  all those people involved in this little saga. What all of them did was beyond the call of duty.

I would like to put on record my sincere thanks and appreciation to all those who helped me retrieved my laptop and to return to Penang on the scheduled flight . It was important to me as I was on my way back to work and appointments could not be cancelled at such short notice.

Dr. Adele Tan

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 23 April 2011, 11:32 pm and is filed under
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Is Najib becoming another Pak Lah – a Prime Minister whose writ does not run in UMNO?

The question many are asking is whether the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is becoming another Pak Lah, the fifth Prime Minister whose writ did not run  in Umno although he was also Umno President ending in his ignominious exit as Umno chief and prime minister.

This question has become more pronounced after  Najib’s meek and completely unacceptable stance over Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call.

Najib’s tame excuse is that the “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call was made by a columnist of a local daily  and was the personal opinion of the writer concerned.

Najib’s excuse might be acceptable if Utusan Melayu is not the official organ of Umno, whose columns represent the mainstream opinion and demands of the Umno leadership in government.

Najib’s meek stance is doubly unacceptable because Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call is an open challenge to his 1Malaysia policy in the past two years – tantamount to an open slap in the face of the Prime Minister’s signature concept.

Furthermore, if any Chinese newspaper had for instance called for a “1Chinese” campaign in the country, it would have been slapped with the full weight of the law, the press closed down  and its editor/writer charged with sedition.  Why the double standards in the case of Utusan Malaysia?

The Cabinet on Wednesday should repudiate and condemn the Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call as irresponsible, seditious and a subtle attempt to sabotage Najib’s 1Malaysia policy.

As Umno President, he should revamp Utusan Malaysia to ensure that it should stop its anti-national campaign and to stop subverting his 1Malaysia signature policy.

If the Cabinet is silent on Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi”, it could only mean that Najib’s 1Malaysia policy is sheer hypocrisy and chicanery costing Malaysian taxpayers RM70 million for APCO to package it as the greatest gift by Najib to Malaysians.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 23 April 2011, 2:12 pm and is filed under
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Sarawak – Baby steps for Change

Hello Uncle Kit,

I would like to bring a very serious issue of fear among Malaysians. Having lived in Switzerland for almost 5 years now as a single female Chinese lady, I am able to walk on the streets in Europe (any cities) at midnight ALONE without the fear that someone will attack me any second. Last week a Malaysian friend who has been living in Petaling Jaya for years came for a visit. While she was here, we walked back to my apartment from the train station on foot around 10pm. She told me, she would not have walked on her own without me. She said, on the way, there’s a man sitting on the bench along the sidewalk and she thinks he could pose a danger to her life. As a matter of fact, I hardly notice there’s a man SITTING ON THE BENCH and what more to say how can it be possible that this man could be a threat. When i mentioned this to my Mainland Chinese friend, she asked me, is the security in Malaysia so bad that my Malaysian friend is always thinking any man or human around her can be a threat? How can it be possible the security in Malaysia is worse than mainland china?

While this could be due to individual personality, then it just struck me, what have we become as Malaysian? Are we always constantly living in FEAR? I think it’s getting ridiculously extreme, the level of our fear. How could it be possible that fear is part and parcel of our society? Is this a new Malaysian culture in Bolehland? When my brother was actively speaking out on Facebook about his dissatisfaction about issues in Kuching or generally in Malaysia (not sensitive issue, like racism, but more on what could be done better by the government in terms of administration and helping the people in needs), my mother actually asked him to stop writing them, in fear of offending the government and the risk of being arrested under ISA. I cannot agree with her why we should refrain from voicing out just because the government is not able to accept any form of criticism. Growing up, we were brainwashed in our education that ‘you shall not criticise the government, you must thank Dr M, you are blessed, we are the best country in the world’, but reality sets in and we are shattered from our ‘dreams’.

Living in a French culture where demonstration is an act of speaking out what they think is right and can be improved, I am very sad and disappointed that we, as Malaysian are not even allowed to have peaceful demonstration to get our messages across to the government and create awareness about critical issues (poverty, corruptions, social security, etc, etc) among the nation and to the international community. How can our government let the police attack unarmed citizens just because they want to be open about their needs and voice their hopes for the nation!!! In fact in Switzerland, whenever there is a planned demonstration about their dissatisfaction on an issue, the police are there not to attack the citizens but to help the demonstrator, such as diverting the traffic, blocking the roads with barricades and ensuring order and most important safety of their citizens.

I remember in 2002, I lost my purse around the KTM station in Klang. I had to make a police report, and I was crying and in fear about the whole situation. Obviously, the police are not being very kind and as expected my purse was never found since that day. While last Sunday, at a park near the lake, I again, lost my purse due to carelessness. As you know the park is crowded with tonnes of people on a Sunday, my first instinct was, this purse will be gone forever as well. So I blocked every card i have in the purse and requested  for a replacement. However, deep inside me, I still pray and hope for a miracle that a kind person will find my purse and contact me. The next day (Monday), my prayers came true and I got back my purse with everything inside it intact. If i were to lost my purse in Malaysia, the chances of it being found and return will be very minimal. A kind person might discover it and send it to the police station, but somehow anything that goes into the police station, it will be sucked into a black hole and never be found again. This is my perception of PDRM and I believe a lot of Malaysians have lost their trust in the people who is suppose to protect and help us. I go to the police for help (even just asking for directions) in any other countries, but in Malaysia, i choose to run away from them, the further the better.

I hope all Malaysians re-evaluate what we mean by staying true to our roots, a gentle and tolerant culture. It doesn’t mean being meek, it doesn’t mean accepting the situation as it is just because we think we are powerless to change them. In fact, we are causing the disease to grow within us, the fear of everything and anything. Besides fear, we are promoting selfishness. “I don’t care what is happening outside, as long as I stayed out, locked myself at home, I will be safe”-kind of mentality is in all of us.

Coming from Kuching, Sarawak, the buzz of the recent election is interestingly a good starting point of Kuching folks coming out from their shell. I believe the mentality of the Chinese in Sarawak is all about peace. We always see ourselves as not aggressive/assertive compared to the Chinese in West Malaysia. Seeing tens of thousands of Kuchingites coming out before the election day is a sign, we are taking the first baby step towards desiring to see changes in Sarawak. This is not a small number, considering almost half of the official Kuching residents are working abroad/West Malaysia or migrated to another country. I hope to see more people letting go of their fear, coming out from their comfort zone and defending their rights. We also want to defend the right of other ethnic groups, especially the oppressed Penans.

http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011/malaysia

Hopefully we are able to see a more positive report about human rights in Malaysia in NEAR future.

Regards,

Anonymous Frustrated Sarawakian

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 23 April 2011, 11:04 pm and is filed under
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