Opposition reps hit out at Sarawak chief minister for threatening the voters of Balingian that their constituency would not get funds if they failed to vote for the BN….
Yesterday Adenan was reported to have told Balingian voters that Taib Mahmud, who was the Balingian assemblyman from 2001 to February 2014 and is now Sarawak Governor, had asked him to convey this message to the people of the Balingian.
“Before he retired he told me to remind you of what he has done for the people of Balingian and to remember what he had contributed to the people in the area, as well as to the whole state.
“So I have to tell you this that if you really appreciate him, he wants you all to vote for the BN-PBB candidate as it is also his party. But if you disregard his advice, it means that you will be ‘tulah (cursed) because he has done so much for you,” Adenan was reported as saying.
So ‘free and fair elections’ have got underway in Sarawak in traditional style, with the state’s political leader threatening to curse the people of Balingian if they do not vote for his party.
Such a curse will be taken on two levels by the locals, whom Adenan’s brother in law and controller the veteran governor, Abdul Taib Mahmud, has deliberately kept poor and uneducated for decades.
On one level they will understand that ‘projects’ and bribes will not come their way – a few ringgit from the state for this or that out of the billions looted from the resource rich region by Taib and his cronies.
On another level they will fear black magic.
Taib is a keen practitioner of black magic, mainly to frighten superstitious locals. At the last Balingian election the ex-chief minister brought his own witch to the polling station!
When Datuk Abdul Wahid Omar from the PM’s office boasted at Oxford University this weekend about ‘resounding support’ for BN in Sarawak he neglected to mention such tactics, let alone the cash bribes due next week!