Food, drinks, song and dance politics

Written by: Dr. John Brian Anthony

I have been visiting a few rural areas lately and lesson learn from those trip is that Dayak will continue to vote BN by being provided with food, drinks, songs and dance. Food and drink is a must in most areas where it is associated with occasion and celebration even though our objective was to share new knowledge and reasoning with the long house folk.

We still have much to do

“We still have much to do” and that is my simple message to Dayakbaru. We must explain our DayakBaru ideas of change and for change. In town, many aspiring politician are talking about “political intrigue” or scheming / plotting and yet the Opposition find it difficult to win. But then this must also change. We must focus on meeting the voters face-to-face. The rural voters really appreciate our effort to meet them and explain things to them.

Concept of “Corruption” is not understood.

The CDs and printed material are reaching the rural areas now. They mentioned the various speeches they heard and the Taib corruption articles they read. It is amazing to find out that the concept of “corruption” is not understood by the rural voters. To them a Minister must be rich because the Minister have the power and can take what they want from the country. Rural voters cannot understand why corruption is bad for the country. To them, it does not matter.

This clearly shows that we have much to do to explain why corruption is bad and also why it is wrong in the eyes of the law. If the voters can understand that corruption is “evil” then we can win more votes. Otherwise, corruption stories about Taib make Taib more popular and stronger. Then you will hear them say ‘amat kaya Taib, patut tau nyadi Kapala Mentri’ and “enti enda kaya kaya ni nya tau nyadi kapala mentri, ukai nya mudah ungkus pengawa bepilih”.

Land Grab issues

This is very sensitive to rural voters and plus their land titles. But too many politician are only equip with “land issues” knowledge. Thus, many meet the people session ended with discussing the concept of land development and Land code amendment. With such narrow talk, the issue of “development” is missing. Development of infra-structures and rural services are equally important as I took survey of the rural voters opinion. The “development” provide them with a sense of moving forward while with no physical evidence of development meant that the YB has done nothing to improve their standard of living.

Development

The MRP is the most common mechanism used by numb skull YBs to please the rakyat. Actually in some of the areas that i visited, the YBs are delivering cheques of $3K – $5K and even $10K to the tuai rumah and to be cashed at a later date to be advised by the YBs. In one instance, the cheque can be cashed on this coming 25th February.

The BN game of distributing money to longhouse visited by PR is ongoing. After PR visit, a YB and Minister would come by helicopter and distribute RM$1K cash to the Tuai Rumah, reminding the TR that this is just the inital sum and more would be given at a later date to kept under the JKKK account.

The JKKK and the RELA members are being politically used by the government in addition to JASA and KEMAS. All this is done in the name of development and unity for the country. The rural folks are sometime confused by the BN tactics except for some educated young TR who made a clear cut decision to accept all political parties that care to visit them and share their view with them.

The Institution of Tuai Rumah

The numbers of Tuai Rumah that are willing to take risk of being called to explain to the D.O on why they accepted Opposition parties to their long house is increasing now. This is despite the fact that Tuai Rumah have been called to attend “Role of community leaders training” by the government and has been talked to by non other then the Chief Minister himself for example in Serikei on 23rd January.

The Government weaken athe Dayak Tuai Rumah institution and even split them politically by not having a clear process of confirming them as Tuai Rumah as required by the local government regulation. The monthly allowance of $450 /$800 was not given with sincerity by the government. The government seem to have the motive of using the allowance as “carrot and stick” and thus damaging the integrity of the Tuai Rumah action and views.

Minister Visit to longhouse

A Minister visit to the long house is always accompanied by Food, hard drinks, dance and songs. Actually a “live” band is always in attendance so that the people can be merry and happy while their problems and woes was not solves. Some longhouse has been brain washed as such that they would expect opposition visiting them to bring them food.

Most of the time the Opposition can explain their limitation but not most of the time. Being “concrete” this voters can only relate to what they ate and feel for the day. But for whatever reason, my suggestion is to bring along tea, coffee,sugar and biscuit as a refreshment for listening to the Opposition views is reasonable enough.

What is more important is for the Opposition to visit the voters in person, deliver the message for change and explain any other point of interest that concern them.

Conclusion

For opposition candidate who wish to have a fighting chance of winning, you must go to the ground. For DayakBaru who wanted to make the change you must also contribute to your own strength. To the Opposition party leaders, I can only suggest that you must select winnable candidate and check your self against fielding candidate who are your “team mate” at the expense of losing the seat to BN. You know that making small team within your own party is bad for politics and why should you not discard that approach.

Change WE Must and we must stay focus on our goal to get rid of BN Government.