The notion that man-made political walls are there to be breached came from a man called Ronald Reagan.

The American president stood before the Berlin Wall one day in June 1987 and commanded the general secretary of the communist party of the Soviet Union: "Tear down this wall."

In the context of the times, Reagan's message was a stunning act of rhetorical effrontery.  

Dovish critics, long inclined to accept the post-war division of Europe into communist and western blocs, alternated between derision and alarm at Reagan's naivety. But the president's neo-conservative admirers lauded him for plain speaking - they held that in the face of evil, there could be no prevarication.

Two years and a few months later, the Berlin Wall tumbled down, conferring on Reagan an imperishable niche in the annals of human liberation, if only for bold assertion of enduring human needs.    

In March 2008, a ‘Berlin Wall' of sorts was breached in Malaysia when BN lost its traditional two-thirds majority in Parliament.

The Dayak discontent

In the immediate prelude to the loss, few were the believers that such a possibility could ever be countenanced.   

At that time, Pakatan Rakyat's Anwar Ibrahim reignited the torch of reformasi at the flame of Indian Malaysian discontent with the BN to start a conflagration whose embers - waxing and waning in tandem with by-election results - would receive a timely reglowing if the opposition coalition succeeds in denying BN its traditional two-thirds majority when polling in Sarawak's 10th state election takes place tomorrow.

Like the denial that occurred in March 2008, the one that could occur tomorrow can only happen if the Dayak majority - long hypnotised like Peninsular Indians prior to the 2008 tsunami, into support of BN - can shake off the stupor to return opposition candidates in several of the constituencies in which they predominate.

There are 29 Dayak-majority seats in Sarawak’s 71-seat chamber. If a third of the seats falls to the opposition, the number would combine with the 10 to 12 Chinese-majority seats that are reasonably expected to be won by the DAP, taking the Pakatan coalition to within reach of a denial of a two-thirds majority to the Sarawak BN.

Such a result would almost certainly hasten Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud's exit from office and add fresh fuel to Pakatan's quest to unseat the BN government of Najib Razak in nationwide polls that are expected soon.

No objective observer who has seen what has happened to the political landscape on the Peninsular following the 2008 tsunami would doubt that similar benefits would accrue to Sarawak should denial occur tomorrow.

Hand-to-mouth existence

Witnessing the obstinacy of Taib Mahmud over the last few weeks in the face of the plainly obvious is enough to convince the unprejudiced observer of the disabling blight that can happen from an overly long tenancy in power.

Similarly, a look at the way seemingly reform-seeking Prime Minister Najib writhes unsuccessfully to bring about changes to an ossified administration is sufficient proof that prolonged tenures are a debilitating condition.

These philosophic nuances are beyond the grasp of the voters in the longhouses, despite being stirred by the opposition over the last 10 years at least, to awareness of continuing erosions to their rights.

Strapped to their daily task of survival in the largely hand-to-mouth existence they have been immured for generations, residents of the state's numerous longhouses are at the mercy of the men with the moneybags who will waft in like an apparition in the immediate prelude to the vote, to sway it to their corrupts ends.

Taking the derisively meager inducements on offer and not voting their instructions would go against the grain of the residents' custom.

But if they do that just this one time, they would commit the second step in the historic march towards refreshment of Malaysian democracy that began on March 8, 2008.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.