It is definitely Adenan’s win

Laja Lang, The Heat Malaysia

Last Tuesday, the first votes were cast in the Sarawak state election with 25, 022 early voters and 106 postal voters picking their government for the next five years.

The rest of the 1.1 million voters would cast theirs tomorrow.

To many political observers, and even some opposition leaders, the Sarawak Barisan Nasional led by the hugely popular Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem will win hands down.

Among the leaders in the opposition Pakatan Harapan bloc that had grudgingly accepted the inevitable is DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang.

In his blog on April 28, the DAP parliamentary leader and MP for Gelang Patah wrote “it is as clear as daylight on Nomination Day on Monday (April 25) that there is 100 per cent certainty that he (Tan Sri Adenan Satem) will continue as the Sarawak chief minister for the next five years”.

With winning the election now out of the question, Pakatan’s campaign in the lead up to the polling this Saturday has changed to canvassing for sympathy votes to deny the ruling coalition the two-thirds majority in the 82-seat legislative assembly.

The opposition has to win no fewer than 28 seats to deny Adenan his two thirds. And Adenan has a  popularity rating by the Merdeka Centre pollsters as high as 86% going into this election.

That 28 is almost a magic figure for DAP and PKR to achieve – for their electoral co-operation is in tatters and two parties are even slugging it out in six seats.

Prior to the dissolution of the state assembly, DAP held 12 seats and PKR three for a total of 15 seats in the then 71-seat assembly.

To reach that magical 28, DAP and PKR between them therefore need to win 13 more seats- assuming they keep what they won in the 2011 election. So just where do their hopes lie?

Let’s start with PKR which is contesting in 40 seats.

The party increased its seats from one to three in the last election but most political pundits are of the opinion that the party would be hard pressed to even hang on to those three seats in this poll.

“I think PKR can only win two seats,” Prof Dr James Chin, the Director of the Asia Institute, University of Tasmania told The Heat.

Chin said while he believed the Chinese-majority Kuching urban seat of Batu Lintang held by its vice president See Chee How is relatively safe, its a toss in the Dayak-majority seat of Krian in central Sarawak held by another vice president Ali Biju and it could lose the other Dayak-majority seat of Ba Kelalan in the Baram highlands held by its state president Baru Bian.

The “Bidayuh tsunami” – Tasik Biru, Mambong, Kedup and the new seat of Bukit Semuja – on the outskirts of Kuching which Kit Siang is hoping for, probably would not happen.

Despite managing to elbow out PKR vice president Boniface WillyTumek in contesting in the Tasik Biru seat, it is hard to see DAP’s Mordi Bimol pulling off an upset in this seat of over 17,000 voters about 46km from Kuching.
In contesting in the 2013 general election, Bimol could only garner just 26% in the contest for seat of Mas Gading –of which Opar and Tasik Bairu are the two state seats that make up that parliamentary seat.

He could not even better an independent to finish third in a four-way fight.

In Mambong, DAP, fielding a political novice in Sanjan Daik, is slugging it out with PKR’s political veteran Willie Mongin.

With the opposition vote heading for a split, incumbent Datuk Dr Jerip Susil, could just retain his seat.

Another seat which DAP has high hopes in is the Iban-majority seat of Simanggang where their Sino-Dayak Leon Jimat Donald is making another attempt to win the seat.

That hope has taken a bashing when PKR decided to field Norima Umoi Utot, a professional in the oil and gas industry.

The same could be said of DAP’s hopes in the new seats of Murum and Mulu.

Both DAP and PKR saw the seats as “winnable” as they hope to cash in on the resentment and anger created by the government’s highly controversial hydro-electric dam construction in the areas.

The two seats were officially allocated to DAP which did not go well with state PKR leaders.

As a consequence PKR’s Abun Sui Anyit and DAP’s unknown Matthew Silek would battle for the opposition votes while BN’s Chuk Pai Ugon could just pocket the seat.

The same could be said in Mulu. The two Pauls’ – PKR’s Paul Baya and DAP’s Paul Anyie Raja – preoccupation with one another could just scuttle whatever hope the opposition might have and hand wins to the BN on a silver platter.

So where are they going to find those 15 seats?

On the same token, some analysts are even predicting DAP could even lose seats like Batu Kawa, Meradong and Dudong – seats which have a sizeable non-Chinese electorates.

The opposition would not only again fall short in denying the BN the two-thirds, they could suffer some unexpected reversal.

So, let’s sit back and watch.