The reality is, the Sarawak elections is not a cyberspace battle. Talking about all these is pointless if not translated practically to the people in the longhouses or kampungs in rural Sarawak.
I’ll tell you why there are so many odds against us: – What is the percentage of people in Sarawak aware of all these things to the point that they are motivated to taking a risk being the enemy of BN directly. Most people are not aware.
Those people who are aware have so much at stake (livelihood, their lands, etc), despite hating BN to the core, they are afraid, especially the civil servants or those in the armed forces.
Their votes can be tracked. There have been cases where civil servants who have been voting for the opposition have something done to them.
- BN will use all sorts of dirty tactics to get the polls in its favour. Among the tactics I’ve heard so far: ghost voters, illegal migrants voters, forced civil/armed forces workers, bribery, splitting votes using frog parties, using the police and the EC to control and ban the movement of the opposition, spreading lies to shun the opposition through the rural people’s most common mass media such as RTM, threatening the people in the longhouses to forcefully take their lands if they vote for opposition (this happened in Kapit and Sibu I heard, not sure how widespread this is), even some of the heads of the longhouses (ketuai rumah) whom the longhouse people rely on tends to be the dogs of BN.
So many odds are against us in reality. If the Sarawak elections is a battle only among the politically aware, more independent and braver intellectual people in the urban area with internets, BN would not have won in 2008. Truth is, it’s not. Unless we managed to deal with a
lot of the dirty tactics and the odds above, only God can overturn the tables and create miracles for us.
What I suggest people do is:
1) Donate as much as you can to the opposition team. These people as I know are working hard on the ground to change the mentality of the
people in the rural area – for traveling using the boat needs gasoline and to buy food for the longhouse people and also print articles in Bahasa Malaysia or Bahasa Iban for them
2) To create as much and as strong awareness as you can among the Sarawakians working or studying in the West Malaysia, also and most importantly those people in the urban areas of Sarawak who have strong connections in the rural areas. These people are the best to create a wave of awareness, especially among the young people
3) To reassure the people that BN cannot not threaten them if everyone stands united, so that they will be brave to take a risk
4) Maybe make the police really really busy nearing the election day… say, by filing lots of report on Taib, on the corruption of the goverment, on the bible issue, on the sex video, etc. Haha… I can only imagine how the head of the police would have migraine over so much work to do!
5) If anyone knows the family members of the EC and armed forces, try to enlighten them in the nicest and most effective way to be fair to opposition, to be fair to the people, etc
6) Remind the people to be wise in recognising the frog candidates whose aim is to split votes
7) Where you have the monetary capacity, and also the talent in ‘ambil hati’ people, come down to rural Sarawak and visit and ambil hati as well as reassure the people to vote for opposition
8) Convince the rural people that the image of ‘pembangkang’ as only people who want to create problem is wrong and that the opposition is actually the real government who are not in power at the moment because the villain BN. It may be winning at the moment but will loose later against people power (just like in the Bollywood film, hero lose first then win later, since longhouses people like to watch Hindi movies, best way to illustrate to them)
9) Many more… Since I’m just an observer, not a tactician, let us all come up with practical ideas that involves everyone, not just in
cyberspace but also outside, to bring down the dictatorship of BN’s regime. Let justice prevail!
10) Pray hard. As much effort as we put in, only God can turn the tables and fight against the odds for us now.
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