THEY are among the poorest and most neglected Malaysians, but every polling day the Orang Asli of Gua Musang are treated like kings.

“That day we get free clothes, free food, pocket money. They bring cars to transport us to the polling centre,” said Mustafa Along in describing how villagers are feted by Barisan Nasional activists. 

“In the villages, they have sports day for the kids with all these colourful prizes and contests,” said the 31-year-old Mustafa from the Temiar tribe in Kuala Betis, which lies on the border of Gua Musang’s virgin rainforests. 

It is this treatment that has ensured that the Orang Asli of Gua Musang are the BN’s most loyal supporters and the reason Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has been an MP there since 1974.  

In the next general election, however, members of the community claim that they have had enough with BN which also controls all three of Gua Musang’s state seats – Galas, Nenggeri and Paloh.

“Ku Li (Tengku Razaleigh’s nickname) did not once visit us during the big floods (in 2014),” said Angah Anjang when met in Kuala Betis.

Razaleigh, they said, has also never showed any support for dealing with the Orang Asli’s biggest problem – logging in the forests of Gua Musang, which have harmed their livelihoods and made them more destitute.

The Temiars of Gua Musang have mounted blockades to stop loggers in the district since 2012. Yet Razaleigh has never once sat down with the community’s elders to discuss the problem of logging, said Mustafa.

This is even after 41 of them were arrested for setting up a blockade in September 2016, that went on for six months.

“We admit that we have always given Ku Li his victories. Our support was 100%,” said Mustafa, adding that the support was due in part to the attention the BN lavished on them during the campaigning period. 

“But we are very disappointed with him now. This election, some of us will change. We don’t know how much, but maybe 30 to 40%,” said Mustafa, a committee member in the Kelantan Orang Asli Villages Network. 

Pakatan Harapan reception

In 2013, there were 40,176 voters in the Gua Musang parliamentary constituency, Kelantan’s remote southern district which borders Pahang and the Taman Negara national park.

Malays make up 80% of its voters while Orang Asli, who are classified as “others”, make up 12% – larger than the area’s Chinese voters at 7%.

Based on that percentage, there are about 4,800 voters in Gua Musang, who make up half of Razaleigh’s winning majority of 8,413 votes in 2013 general election. 

Razaleigh’s winning majority in the 2008 election was 4,394 votes and he clinched the seat in the 2004 polls with a 6,598-majority.

Gua Musang’s state seats of Neggeri, Paloh and Galas have also all been kept in BN hands since 2004 thanks to the Orang Asli, said Angah.

PAS has never been able to get Orang Asli support because the community blames its state government for approving all the logging licences that destroy their forests.

But their unyielding backing for BN cracked after the 2014 floods, said Mustafa.

“They promised us aid for the floods and we prepared letters and delivered it to the Nenggeri ADUN (state assemblyman Mat Yusof Ghani). But we never got a reply,” said Mustafa. 

The few politicians who visited their blockade are from Pakatan Harapan parties DAP and Amanah.

Along with its other component parties PKR and Bersatu, PH is locked in a battle with BN to capture Kelantan from PAS.  

“Lim Kit Siang visited us,” said Mustafa, referring to the DAP parliamentary leader, who visited one of three blockades in Kuala Betis that have been set up since February this year. 

Pictures on Selangor DAP leader Hannah Yeoh’s Twitter account showed that Lim was accompanied by Kelantan Amanah chief Wan Abdul Rahim Wan Abdullah. The latter had contested against Razaleigh in 2013.

According to Yeoh’s Twitter post, Lim had also received about 200 membership forms from the Temiar tribe.

Mustafa was non-committal about whether PH’s visit meant that the tribe was open towards supporting the coalition in its bid to capture the state.

“We are going to come out with a memorandum and list of demands. We want a complete stop of logging in Kelantan and respect for our rights.

“We will be sending this out to all parties… BN, PAS and PH. Whoever promises to support our demands will get our vote,” he said. ­– March 10, 2018.