Sibu voters roar, BN whimpers
By Maclean Patrick (FMT)
Sibu started with a bang from Barisan Nasional. Now there’s barely a whisper. The BN team packed their bags and quietly left before the results were announced on Sunday evening. There was minimal coverage of the results in the main media, as with a nightmare BN were eager to forget.
Left behind in their wake are promises that may remain unfulfilled. But promises not kept will become lies: were Najib Tun Razak and crew lying when they promised RM18 million for Chinese schools, RM1.7 million for churches and RM5 million for flood mitigation projects?
If Hulu Selangor was a show of the democratic process gone right (in the minds of the Barisan Nasional) what then is Sibu? Democracy gone wrong, all because Barisan Nasional lost? Perhaps that is why, acting like sore losers, they left town without so much as a squeak.
If past records are anything to go by, little will remain of BN promises after losing a vote. The reality is that defeat turns promises into instruments with which to punish hapless voters who voiced their views through the democratic process.
In fact, Sibu voters showed the democratic process at its finest: rising above “money politics”, the voters chose justice and good governance, opting for change in the only way they knew possible, via the ballot box.
Rather than being sore losers, the BN should be benevolent winners even in defeat.
The message was clear. The people of Sibu had had enough. The rhetoric of the SUPP failed to show up the other story, the disparity between Chinese and non-Chinese. Why were there paved roads into Chinese communities and gravel roads to the rural Iban longhouses? Why were urban Malays sidelined in business deals? And even among the Chinese, why was favour shown to those affiliated to the Sarawak Chief Minister? Where was the development promised from the previous election?
Read more at: http://freemalaysiatoday.com/fmt-english/opinion/comment/5749-sibu-voters-roar
