Sabah, Sarawak papers carry BN threats to voters

aliran.com

The Borneo Post and The Daily Express have carried reports effectively warning voters that they risk losing development grants in their areas if they vote for the opposition

This was a line in a Daily Express report: "Should the opposition win a seat in the coming election, (Sabah Chief Minister) Musa said he would not even want to see the opposition Assemblyman if the latter went to see him."

It is simply amazing that newspaper editors, acting more like messenger boys or stenographers, can publish such threats without any critical response. In any democratic nation worthy of the name, such threats could have met with severe sanctions from independent Election Commissions and would have been condemned in a free press. Alas, not here in Malaysia, where politicians and editors join forces to bombard readers with not only propaganda but also blatant threats.

The BN, along with its sycophantic newspaper editors, has a strange notion of democracy. "Vote us or else!" At least the brutal generals in Burma are more honest: they don't pretend to be democratic.