“‘Any money YB?’ a voter asked me, as I asked him to vote for me. He said BN promised RM200 for his vote,” Wong Ho Leng, state assembly representative for Bukit Assek and the underdog DAP candidate for the Sibu parliamentary by-election, posted on Twitter on May 10.

Offers of vote-buying, Wong concluded, are not in the realm of rumour. Wong’s allegation is nothing new. Every poll in Sarawak in living memory - state, parliamentary or by-election - has been dogged by reports of vote-buying...