This contest could hardly have come at a worse time for Malaysia’s ruling BN party which is  struggling to pretend that its President, Najib Razak, is not a mega thief and worse and that Malaysia is  not riddled with corruption and criminal activity; not merely tolerated by BN but managed by it.

In normal democratic circumstances that scenario would inevitably lead to a BN wipe-out and show that at the next general election the BN socalled “safe deposit”of BN Sarawak MPs would disappear leaving BN in a parliamentary minority.

Faced with such a situation one would expect that BN would seek a way, any way, to cancel or postpone the election.  But no. Having gerrymandered a number of new mini constituencies into existence as an electoral precaution BN now confidently expects to keep its electoral majority in the State.

Why, when almost the whole Chinese population wll support the DAP/ PKR opposition and so place the State’s urban areas under opposition control?  The answer lies partly in the electoral malpractice which has marked all previous Sarawak State elections.  Bribery of voters backed up by intimidation.  Vote rigging.  Ballot box manipulation and the whole  gamut of fraudulent election  practice.  All viewed with a blind eye  by the government appointed Election Commission.

This state of affairs is hopelessly un-democratic but persists in the native communities which not only do not recieve the facilities and services (health, education and general development) which they should but are held in conditions of backwardness as BN policy.

How, one might ask, can this appalling state of affairs still be the norm after more than fifty years of Independence? The answer is simple. Outside the vigorous Chinese community 90% of whose support goes to the oppositon party, the DAP, there is virtually no organised political opposition. Parties there, are whose main preoccupation is fighting each other for gain, but who lack all the attributes of responsible political opposition.

One  only has to look at what happened after the last State election. In that, aided by some input  from the PKR in mainland Malaysia the PKR gained seats, though not a majority. Opposition members of the new Assembly were next seen, not in their constituencies but in absurd Malay style uniforms posing for photographs at the State Assembly buiding. What the late Temonggong Jugah (pre Independence leader) who was proud to be seen in the capital Kuchng dresssed only in his traditional chawat would have made of that beggars imagination!

Also they were  happy to accept a tripling of their official salaries!  Is it any wonder that political opposition outside urban  areas is almost non existent?

The native population of Sarawak have a few short weeks to realise their actual position of impotence and to do something about it. Their alternative is to go on accepting miniscule bribes for their votes and watching the Malay/Melanau elite ( a tiny fraction of the  electorate) steal the remains of their tropical forest timber and ancestral lands.