“May 7 has been a sad expression on democracy, characterized by bickering, banning, and buying of votes.”

Many Sarawakians, added Jaban, seem to have decided that they couldn’t be bothered to vote at all. “Even if they wanted to vote, 500,000 eligible voters were not registered at all.”

“This partly explains the low voter turnout.”

The S4S Chief nevertheless hastened to conceded that Chief Minister Adenan Satem was personally “popular” and should be given a chance to prove himself. “The people expect him to make good his promises on autonomy.”

“The people had no time in a state election for national issues which they can only revisit in 2018. This explains the low turnout at DAP ceramah in the urban areas.”

Jaban, resuming, went on to say that he doesn’t buy the Election Commission’s estimation that 70.1 per cent of the voters turned out on May 7 “This cannot be possible unless 200,000 voters turned up between 4 pm and 5 pm when the last polling stations closed. Long before 4 pm, many polling stations had in fact already closed.”

“At 4 pm, the voter turnout was 52 per cent. After that it was silence from the EC. Earlier, it had been announcing the voter turnout every hour.”

Jaban was disclosing that, as a result, S4S had decided to register a political party to enter the fray in 2021, perhaps even earlier in 2018.

He also wanted to comment on reports from the peninsula describing Sarawakians as “foolish and stupid” for returning the Barisan Nasional (BN) to power. “The result had been skewed long before polling day by extensive gerrymandering,” he charged in standing up for the “foolish and stupid” voters in his homeland.

“The people in the peninsula, especially the armchair critics, don’t really understand the situation at all. After every gerrymandering exercise, the BN as the ruling coalition comes in with a landslide.”

“Peninsula Malaysians should not think that we have a loin-cloth mindset.”

Jaban recalled then Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi won by the biggest landslide ever in 2004 after a gerrymandering exercise. “By 2008, the effects of the gerrymandering had worn off and he lost the BN’s coveted two-thirds majority in Parliament.”

The key to reining in a ruling party, continued Jaban, was not to allow it two-thirds majority in the legislature, and if it has, to strip it of that status. “Things have never been the same since 2008 in Parliament because the ruling BN coalition does not have a two-thirds majority to indulge in gerrymandering exercises, among others.”

Again, he cautioned Peninsular Malaysians against thinking that Sarawakians were going around in their sirat (male) and cawat (female) attire all the time, clutching their spears, blowpipes and parang ilang, and breaking into the ngajat (traditional Iban dance) now and then.

“The sirat and cawat are in Tourism Malaysia brochures, being based on a distant past, and unfortunately mislead tourists and Peninsular Malaysians on Sarawak.”