Sarawak Pakatan ready for polls
The opposition in Sarawak is well prepared to face any surprises Najib Tun Razak is planning to throw at them.
The opposition in Sarawak is pretty much ready to take on Barisan Nasional (BN) even if Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak dissolves Parliament and calls for the 13th general election tomorrow.
Such is the confidence of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat in Sarawak. The coalition is aiming to contest in all 31 parliamentary seats and to date have “almost” resolved all seats issues among partners DAP, PKR and PAS.
Unlike in Sabah, the Pakatan coalition in Sarawak seems to work on the principle of “agree to disagree” on issues and have managed to strike a political balance among themselves.
Currently, DAP and PKR hold 12 and three seats respectively in the State Legislative Assembly following last April’s state election. Both groups are confident of their respective strengths.
Declaring the coalition’s confidence, Sarawak PKR official Baharuddin Mokhsen said the party is “well prepared for the election”.
“We have completed a series of retreats-cum-trainings for the party’s election workers.
“We have tried to equip our members with the election rules and regulations… as such, we feel we are now well prepared for the election,” he told reporters here.
New campaigning trend
Baharuddin said as far as Sarawak was concerned the opposition coalition was prepared to move at anytime and that the only concern was the “use of violence” during the campaign period.
“We realised that there is now this new campaigning trend among members of some political parties in the state that we have to really watch out. We don’t want to be drawn into unnecessary trouble,” he said.
Meanwhile, the women’s wing has been actively pursuing its out-reach programmes in the villagers in rural and semi-urban seats.
National PKR vice-president Voon Siak Ni said the party had studied the trends in the last election and the focus now was to encourage a higher voter turnout especially among the women.
“Apart from reaching out to the women and explaining our stand, we are also calling on them to come out and vote in this coming election because the record shows that the percentage of voter turnout in the last state election was only about 60% in most areas and in some others the turnout was only above 50%,” she said.
She said the movement was also intensifying its coverage in all constituencies eyed by Pakatan.
“It does not matter who will contest there. Whether it is PKR or DAP that is not important because after all, we are doing the preparation for Pakatan,” she said.
