Anwar Ibrahim’s drawing power on the vote in Batang Ai must be considerable if the vilification campaign against him is taken as a gauge.

Anwar was in Batang Ai last Wednesday for just half a day - a trip that enabled him to stump for votes in just two kampongs in a constituency that has more than 120 far flung ones.

By dint of electioneering standards in a state as vast as Sarawak, the visit’s brevity is patently inadequate for impact on voters whose worldview is circumscribed by what they see on government-controlled radio and TV.

batang ai by election anwar campaign 020409 04 Needless to say, Anwar has no access to the latter channels and when he is featured, it is often as the object of ridicule if not vilification.

Still, his lightning visit to Batang Ai must have had considerable magnetic power because the following day, a scurrilous pamphlet as well as a leaflet deriding his credibility were seen in circulation.

While the pamphlet’s contents are dipped in vitriol, the colourfully done leaflet was an attack by legitimate means.

Everyone knows that the Barisan Nasional is not a monolithic entity in Sarawak, with factions vying for disproportionate control under a chief minister, Taib Mahmud, who keeps contending forces in check by subtly manipulating their antagonism.

Thus it’s no secret that while BN candidate Malcolm Mussen Lamoh is the choice of Parti Rakyat Sarawak, a member of the ruling coalition, the 49-year-old golf loving engineer is allied to Alfred Jabu, the head honcho among the Dayaks of Parti Bumiputera Bersatu, the dominant party in the coalition.

Jabu is the object of contempt by Dayaks discontented with their lot under the 28-year-old tenure of Taib as chief minister. Jabu is seen as Taib’s chief booster among BN-supporting Dayaks.

Unsurprisingly, Jabu is also Anwar’s most caustic detractor, virtually calling him a man whose presence in the longhouses would provoke the evil fairies of Dayak legend to assail its residents.

Anwar was ‘king of corruption’

The Iban-language pamphlet deriding Anwar, headlined ‘Wanted: Pembulok No 1’ which translates roughly as ‘Wanted: Chief liar’, with a superimposed picture of a baleful-looking Anwar on the front, lists the promises that he allegedly made to Peninsular Malaysians in the run-up to the general election last year.

The pamphlet claims that, a year later, the promises are largely unkept in Selangor, Perak, Penang and Kedah, which are states ruled by Pakatan Rakyat.

batang air state seat 240209 It goes on to charge that Anwar, in his days as deputy prime minister and finance minister from 1993 to 1998, was the “king of corruption” who had enriched his relatives and friends. It concludes by urging the people of Batang Ai not to put their faith in a man as two-faced as Anwar.

In terms of campaign invective, the pamphlet was reminiscent of the one put out by MCA-allied forces in the days before the vote in last year’s general election which depicted Anwar as the dragon-faced nemesis of such priorities as Chinese language education and culture.

However, the leaflet criticising Anwar was a classy affair which purports to show dilapidated shophouses and homes and dirty and narrow streets in Permatang Pauh.

It claimed that their condition has been the same for 27 years now, 17 of which with Anwar as the constituency’s MP. The poster asks if a leader as allegedly negligent as Anwar can help the people of Batang Ai.

The gulf in tone between vitriolic leaftlet and allusive poster was as wide as that in living standards between, say, Lubok Antu and Kuching.