Malaysiakini
Apr 26, 11

More than 100 Ibans stormed the Sibu headquarters of the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) yesterday, demanding the balance of RM400 a person as their reward promised for backing a party candidate who won in the recent state election, an election watchdog has revealed.

Sibu Election Watch (SEW) in a press statement released in the Sarawak town late yesterday evening said the Ibans were upset that they did not get the “balance”, despite being promised by SUPP election agents as well as the tuai rumah (longhouse headman) before polling day.

The incident was first reported by the web portal Sarawak Indigenous Community News and tweeted by DAP Sarawak chairman and Bukit Assek assemblyperson Wong Ho Leng (left), who was present at the site yesterday.

Soon after the news broke out, SEW sent two representatives to the Sibu SUPP headquarters to check out the situation.

Its probe, SEW said, showed that the Ibans were promised an upfront payment of RM100 before voting day on April 16 and if the SUPP candidate won, they would each be paid another RM400 after the election.

SEW said its representatives have witnessed Ibans from at least two longhouses being paid the “balance” of RM400 each.

The election watch said the Ibans were from Rumah Chandi, Rumah Pasang and Rumah Ujang.

When the SEW representatives were leaving the scene, it said, only the residents from Rumah Chandi and Rumah Pasang had collected the money from SUPP.

“One of the residents from Rumah Chandi even distributed a stack of RM100 bills to the longhouse folk holding their identity cards in front of us,” SEW said.

Quarrel with tuai rumah

SEW said it interviewed one Iban voter from Rumah Ujang, who revealed that the Iban folk had a quarrel with their tuai rumah for not getting their RM400 even a week after polling day.

“However, the tuai rumah hit back that some people had voted for DAP and did not deserve to get the RM400 balance,” said the young Iban man SEW quoted in its press statement.

However, he blamed the tuai rumah for being unfair, since the BN had no way of proving which person did not vote for BN in the election.

SEW said another Iban man, who only wanted to be known as “Robin”, gave them a letter and expressed the residents’ anger against their tuai rumah, Mador Anak Rendah.

In the letter signed by ‘Disgruntled Voters’, the Sg Rasau voters said they felt deep regret that BN and SUPP failed to deliver their election promises.

“During the election eve, we were given RM100 each voter and later promised RM400 if the candidate wins in the election,” reads the letter.

However, when approached by SEW and Wong, these Iban voters refused to lodge police reports on the matter.

The reason they gave was “no point doing so”, since the police did not take any action despite some police reports lodged before.

BN retained its power in Sarawak in the April 16 state election with a two-thirds majority, while the opposition increased its seats from seven to 15. The Sarawak legislature has 71 seats.