As Sarawak campaign kicks off, Pakatan still bickers
By Clara Chooi and Sheridan Mahavera, The Malaysian Insider
KUCHING, April 6 — The battle for Sarawak starts today as Barisan Nasional (BN) attempts to preserve its dominance over the hornbill state, where Pakatan Rakyat (PR) hopes to repeat its 2008 tsunami by denying the ruling coalition a two-thirds majority win in the 71-seat assembly.
Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud is going for a record 31st year as chief minister on nomination day today and will attempt to prove that he can once again shepherd BN to a comprehensive victory despite being dogged by allegations of corruption and abuse of power.
He is expected to be challenged in his Balingian seat by his second cousin who is also a former deputy education minister, Datuk Salleh Jafaruddin.
PR has to prove that its limited machinery and resources will not hamper its aim of making significant inroads into Sarawak, long considered a BN fortress and “fixed deposit” of parliamentary seats for the federal coalition.
Major political headway into Sarawak, including denying BN a two-thirds majority in the state assembly, would likely affect the timing of the general election, which is not due before 2013.
But even before nomination papers are filed, PR is said to already be bickering over seats and this would lead to multi-cornered fights and splitting the opposition vote among its three key parties — PKR, DAP, PAS — and local opposition outfit, Sarawak National Party (SNAP).
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who will be leading the PR charge, is bogged down by his on-going second sodomy trial, in-fighting within his own party PKR and a recently-released sex video implicating him.
An impasse over using the Bahasa Malaysia bible is also expected to gnaw at the feelings of Sarawak’s Christians, who make up 50 per cent of the over 979,796 voters, and Sarawak BN is expected to prove that its development politics will mute any backlash over the issue.
However, analysts and politicians have admitted that despite the uproar caused by BN’s attempts to limit the Al Kitab’s usage, the issue will not adversely affect the ruling coalition’s campaign.
Analysts also predict that there will be fierce contests in 29 seats, most of them in urban and semi-urban areas where Chinese voters are in the majority. These are also seats where the PR stands the most chance of winning.
The rest of the 42 seats are expected to be retained by the BN.
For PR, denying BN the psychologically-important two-thirds majority in the state assembly means it has to win at least 24 seats.
