History of Malaysia's most corrupted state election

APRIL 17 — Predictably, the sycophantic mainstream media is celebrating Barisan Nasional’s (BN) victory in Sarawak. They are even putting a gloss on Taib Mahmud’s performance but the biggest accolade is being reserved for Najib Razak, Muhyiddin Yassin and other BN leaders from West Malaysia.

Surprising also is fact that even The Malaysian Insider is paying homage to the Najib factor. I suppose this is what you call the herd mentality.

Just what is the Najib factor? The ability to command the use of government resources to campaign for one’s political preservation?

The wanton use of cash to buy very poor rural voters. According to The Malaysian Insider, about RM500 million was used to grease palms (hey, don’t call the MACC . Those chaps only investigate DAP aides.)

So is the Najib factor the reliance on an Election Commission which doesn’t bother with any pretence of independence (it does seem strange that there is an increase of postal votes everytime polls are held and yet surely our armed forces and police force is not in the hundreds of thousands)

We call ourselves God-fearing people, people steeped in the belief in the Almighty and the after life. And yet we accept and embrace behaviour which runs counter to our religious belief.

What am I talking about is the use of money by corrupt politicians (and here I am not referring to Taib Mahmud or other Sarawak politicians. The so-called white knights from Semenanjung would fail any corruption test) to buy support of Malaysians.

There was corruption galore in Sarawak but the focus was only on Taib. The focus should also have been on the fat cats from Semenanjung and on us. Yes, the focus should be on us, the Malaysian voter.

We who worship in mosques, churches, temples, kuils and then facilitate corruption.