Pakatan may not have it easy in Kuching

Syed Jamal Zahiid

Pakatan's drive to make a clean sweep in Kuching may falter in the face of strong challenge.

ANALYSIS

 

KUCHING: Pakatan Rakyat will not have it easy in Padungan while its mission to wrest Batu Kawah from Barisan Nasional (BN) remains bleak, rendering its aim for a clean sweep in the Sarawak capital doubtful.

The DAP will face a fierce fight to win the seat against incumbent Dominique Ng as ground observation in the city-centred Padungan constituency indicated a split among Pakatan supporters as many remain loyal to the former PKR leader who is now contesting as an independent.

Ng, a lawyer, is a popular figure there … a local boy whom voters said served well as a state assemblyman.

Unlike peninsular politics, voters here do identify more with the face than the flag and this could be problematic for the opposition pact.

And the reason for his defection – allegation of sabotage from both DAP and PKR – has somewhat resonated with his supporters who, while donning PKR shirts, have openly blasted their own party.

Many say PKR and the DAP have imported “back-stabbing politics” – characteristics of peninsular style of politicking – into Sarawak and call on voters to reject them.

But while the anger is visible, the support towards Ng is not. In his debut ceramah last night, he managed to gather fewer than a 100 people. On nomination day, only his family members showed up.

DAP’s sterling track record

However, the DAP’s proven track record among the Chinese, which form a staggering 90% of Padungan voters despite having bet on a new and young face, will be its ace card especially amid realisation that there is a bigger enemy – Sarawak’s powerful Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud.

This is why DAP is more than likely to keep Kota Sentosa and Pending while PKR, after swapping seats with the former which allegedly was done without Ng’s knowledge and led to the fallout, will likely win Batu Lintang.

The turnout to their ceramah has been massive. All three state constituencies have more than 70% Chinese electorate and the anti-Taib sentiment among them is growing exponentially.

Kota Sentosa belongs to Sarawak DAP secretary Chong Chieng Jen who is also the Kuching MP. Pending is under Violet Yong, DAP’s state treasurer. Both of them will face a three-cornered fight but observers believe the presence of the independents will have no effect.

Batu Lintang, on the other hand, will see a three-cornered contest and pundits also believe this will slightly toughened up the fight, but is unlikely to have any impact on PKR’s See Chee How chances of winning the seat.

Tough for DAP

However, the perceived widespread anti-Taib sentiment among the Chinese voters in Sarawak is not applicable everywhere. Proof of this is in Batu Kawah where the DAP had failed to win in the 2006 state polls.

The DAP has fielded Christina Chiew, 27, the party’s youngest candidate, for the current state polls and she will be facing popular incumbent Tan Joo Phoi from the Supp. Observers are stacking the odds against her.

Batu Kawah, a predominantly Hakka seat, is known to be a Supp stronghold. A ceramah by DAP national bigwigs like Lim Kit Siang and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng managed to attract only a handful of people.

Many believe that crowd sizes do not necessarily translate into votes but not during election time. This constituency is also the only seat in Kuching with a 56% Chinese majority. The rest are Bumiputeras who are generally known to be pro-BN.

However, there are still six days of campaigning to do and things may just turn around as the race picks up speed. Pakatan only unveiled its elections manifesto yesterday.

The manifesto, populist, to say the least, if marketed well, could be a hit with the Sarawakians who long for real change in a state that has descended from being a resource-rich state to one of Malaysia’s poorest states.