THE results of yesterday’s polls speak for themselves. Norm demands that the winners in any contest, political contest included, ought to be congratulated, and that the losers must be consoled with words of encouragement sincerely offered. To my friends who joined in the fray, I’d say that there’s life after elections. We shall meet again at the favourite coffee shop to do the post-mortem, planning ahead for the bigger battle at the federal elections.
The thousands who cannot vote
To those who cast their votes yesterday, I say that you have done your duty to king and country. However, I’d like you to spare a thought for those of your fellow Sarawakians, half a million of them, who are not on the electoral rolls. Please make an effort to contact them and urge them to register as voters between now and the next federal elections or else they will miss the bus again. Even registered voters working outside Sarawak were deprived of their rights to vote in yesterday’s elections. Unfair, isn’t it?
The Election Commission is not obliged to be proactive in making registration automatic for eligible citizens as voters by the stroke of a pen. Anyway, for the moment we have to live with this discrimination, but it is not the end of the matter. Sensible people will eventually support the introduction of automatic registration of voters, I firmly believe.
Any registered voter now working in the peninsula or in Singapore or Brunei will have to earn and save enough money for the passage home to cast one vote — an expensive exercise but the Election Commission does not look at it that way. Many people have lost confidence in their ability to propose an amendment to Article 119 of the Federal Constitution to enable the citizens who have reached the voting age of 21 years to be deemed registered voters. But it’s for the elected leaders to mull over or shall we wait for the new MPs to be in place in KL to amend the law?
Like a new broom
It is our hope that the new administration like a new broom will sweep well or will we be seeing and experiencing more of the same?
For the next few days, however, everybody will continue to congratulate everybody else via every medium – email and SMS being the fastest methods. The print media will have their field day later. There will be more felicitations when the full cabinet is formed.
Who is the new speaker, sir?
Many would like to ask the Rt Honourable the Chief Minister who the new Speaker of the House is. The man will have to be picked out of the elected members of the Dewan; once picked, he is anxious to go to the tailors in KL to have his robes cut and fitted.
He might as well take along his family for a holiday for after that they will see little of him.
Meanwhile, the brand new YBs will be going to the tailors too for their ceremonial uniforms to be ready for the first session of the Dewan in about two months’ time. They will have to prepare speeches – their maiden. They will have to prepare questions for oral answers and submit them to the Speaker within a certain time frame and get ready supplementary questions, if necessary.
They will have to familiarise themselves with the provisions of the Standing Orders of the Dewan, by which their lives will be governed while inside the august chamber. And the etiquette governing their behaviour is equally important if the venerable Council Negeri wants to maintain its tradition of good manners handed down to Sarawakians for generations from its Bintulu days on Sept 8-9, 1867 — its first meeting in a small building, in Bintulu; not everyone knows where the spot was. What a shame!
The newly elected members of the Dewan will be proud of being part of this ancient institution with humble beginnings and we expect them to carry on with that fine tradition of courtesy and good fellowship while actively participating in the deliberations of the Dewan as worthy representatives of their respective constituencies.
They will have to read the Financial Regulations of the Government and heaps of other documents. Previous records of the proceedings of the Council called the Hansard make interesting reading. I had the privilege of editing some speeches in 1964 when I worked for the Clerk of the Council, Peter Chong. We were ‘squatting’ at the Lanka Building, the property of the Speaker of the Council, Dr Sockalingam, within walking distance from the old court house, which is now the Sarawak Tourism Complex.
The new YBs will have little precious time for spouses and children from now on. Each YB will be public property exposed to criticism, even ostracism; praise or appreciation will be a scarce commodity.
Celebrations over, time for reflection and the beginning of hard work as the expectations of the people are rising higher and higher by the day. The winners will face the challenge of fulfilling the promises made during the election campaign. That’s when the worries and frustrations start to appear if held against the light or begin to show on the faces while one is shaving or combing hair.
What to do with so much money?
Millions of ringgit have been heaped on Sarawak for the past few months mainly from federal sources.
Money for schools – Chinese schools (promise of 2,000ha of land to be developed for the benefit of the independent schools), mission schools (nobody knows how many millions) and other educational institutions.
What about land to be developed to benefit mission schools?
Money for rural roads and bridges — to Song, Kapit and Belaga, to Baram and other areas.
What about money for the road to Biawak? Sorry to divert your attention. I will vote for the candidate who can get funds with which to complete the sealing of the road to Biawak.
Money for agricultural schemes, animals and vegetables, and training of farmers.
Money for medical and health services and the training of doctors and nurses.
Money for river clinics and the flying doctor service.
Money for projects in SCORE, for more dams? Is enough money coming in the form of foreign investment to SCORE?
Money for training of skilled workers for the projects in SCORE?
Money, money for rural development.
I have stopped counting.
Money from our oil and gas and palm oil and timber, we know. Money from the payment of royalties?
Promissory notes to settle
These are promissory notes that must be settled before the next elections, this time around the federal polls.
If major promises are not fulfilled within this limited period before the federal elections, they will become election issues, in addition to the issues already in existence in the state, carried forward from yesterday’s election.
The ‘fixed deposit’ states like Sarawak and Sabah will be blamed for non-delivery and the road to Putrajaya may be full of potholes.
Local issues remaining unsolved
The problems relating to the issuance of leases to plantation companies over parcels of land owned by the natives by virtue of their customs is still largely unsolved. These will remain serious issues in Sarawak. Many cases on native customary rights (NCR) already filed with the courts will take time to dispose of. Although a number of NCR cases have been won by the landowners, several are on appeal to a higher court by the government and these will take time to be finally settled. And this creates uncertainty and thus remains controversial and politicised to the hilt.
Hope springs eternal
Whether or not the present government will make any difference in your life, only time will tell.
For the next five or so years, let’s see how they perform.
We wish them well.
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