Money politics has sunk so deep in Sarawak that voters have acquired the habit of demanding cash reward from the winners, including the opposition.

This was what Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian encountered during the recently concluded Sarawak election in which he won the rural seat of Ba'Kelalan.

NONE According to him, a young voter in his constituency tried to 'brainwash' his elder mother to vote for 'bulan' (moon), the term by Sarawakians have adopted to refer to PKR's symbol.

"Before the election, a BN campaigner gave her RM100 and told her that she can collect the balance of RM200 after the polls.

"Then two days after the election, she came to the PKR office to collect the RM200," said Baru, drawing a round of laughter from some 40 members of the audience attending the 'Teh Tarik session with Baru Bian' in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

The 52-year-old activist lawyer-turned-politician from the ethnic minority of Lun Bawang also shared the story of his rival's abuse of power to influence the voters.

He claimed that BN agents had recruited the voters into the People's Volunteer Corps (Rela) on polling day eve and given them uniforms and boots.

"Then (the agents) sent them on duty on polling day and told them they have become civil servants, so they must vote for the BN.

"But this was not working in my area because the uniforms and boots came too late on polling day.

NONE "They were scrambling to grab them. So some got uniforms without boots and some got boots but without uniforms," said Baru, setting off an explosion of laughter.

The interactive discussion session in a cafe was organised by news portal Malaysia Digest, inviting Baru and several Sarawak natives to share their experience in Sarawak politics and the struggle to protect their Native Customary Rights (NCR) land.

First visible signs of change

The natives had refused to be relocated from their homeland at Sungai Balui, which has been affected by the construction of the Bakun dam.

Instead they had dragged the government to court for illegally encroaching their NCR land.

NONE They were represented by Baru and the l andmark case is being heard at the Federal court.

Although NCR land dispute has be more pervasive in the past decade, Baru pointed out that not many natives understand that their problems were caused by state government policy that has approved millions hectares of areas, including NCR land for private companies.

"They don't relate land problems with the policy of the state government. If they have land problems, they would go see lawyer or NGO, but when it comes to election, they vote for the BN."

He attributed the low level of political awareness to 48 years of BN indoctrination.

"My parent's generation has been indoctrinated to think that the BN is the government and government is the BN. There is no distinction between political party and government," he said.

Hence Baru and his party have been sweating to educate the people, especially the rural and elder folk.

One of the most effective ways, said Baru, is distributing DVDs with simple contents that explain the reason to have an election every five years, to rural families.

"It is very hard to change, it takes time."