General election tops agenda of BN meeting

The Barisan Nasional is set to conduct an election dry run soon to gear up for the coming parliamentary polls.

KUALA LUMPUR: Preparations for the 13th general election will be the top agenda of the Barisan Nasional (BN) supreme council meeting this Friday, as the coalition is set to conduct an election dry run soon, said BN secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor.



He said that a paper on holding the dry run would be presented during the meeting as the coalition was expected to undergo the dry run after the Umno election dry run in July.

“We are likely to touch on the Sarawak (state) election performance, analyse the election results, touch on voter registration and I will be putting up the paper for the election dry runs.

“All these are related to the general election preparation as we have to get ready and gear up for it,” he told Bernama here today.

Tengku Adnan said BN must prepare itself to face the general election by learning lessons from the several by-elections held and the recently-concluded Sarawak election so that it would be able to counter the opposition onslaught.

This included studying the voting patterns exhibited by the voters in Singapore’s 14th general election last Saturday as part of its preparations for the general election.

Sarawak-based BN components are also expected to present their post-mortem reports during the meeting as the coalition will use their inputs in drafting strategies for the next general election.

“We will look into various aspects in order to stengthen our overall preparation for the next general election,” said Tengku Adnan.

In the Sarawak election held on April 16, BN won 54 out of the 71 seats, retaining its two-thirds majority in the State Legislative Assembly.

The biggest contribution was from Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) which won all its 35 seats, Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) won eight of the nine seats it contested and Sarawak Progressive Democratic party (SPDP) won six out of eight seats.

Another component, Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), faced its worst ever election performance when the party only won six out of the 19 seats contested.

Sabah-based Liberal Democratic Party president VK Liew said the review of BN’s Sarawak election performance would be important for the coalition as it needed to look into its weaknesses in order to prepare itself better for the coming general election.

“Normally, whenever we have an election, we have the chance to study how effective our machineries are. It’s a consistent learning curve that enables us to fine-tune and improve ourselves for a bigger battle,” he said.

- Bernama