Sunday, April 10, 2011

Sarawak polls: Battle for Kuching City seats



Large crowds have seen attending the political rallies organised by the DAP and PKR in Kuching City’s five constituencies -- Padungan, Pending, Batu Lintang, Batu Kawah and Kota Sentosa -- since day one of the campaigning in the Sarawak polls.

The Pakatan Rakyat rallies have attracted an average of 2,000 people, while the ones by Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) and the Barisan Nasional (BN) have been more low key, getting an average of 300 to 500 people.

Besides ceramahs, SUPP is also organising dinners in restaurants and private houses to reach out to voters.

However, political insiders point out that attendance figures are not a reliable way to gauge support, as they could be misleading. Instead, going right down to the grassroots and reaching out to voters is the only tried and tested way to find out which party is making headway.




According to sources, DAP, which is battling SUPP in the urban areas, has a slight edge in Kota Sentosa, Pending and Padungan, but trails in Batu Kawah. PKR's See Chee How is contesting in Batu Lintang.

There, its candidate Christina Chiew Wang See needs to win at least 61% of the Chinese votes and 10 to 15% of the natives to have a realistic chance of capturing Batu Kawah from the SUPP-BN candidate Tan Joo Phoi.

In the 2006 state election, Batu Kawah was contested by PKR's Wong Huan Yu, who garnered 26.3% of the total votes cast.

In the 2008 general election however, the DAP won 40%of the votes in Batu Kawah, which, along with Batu Lintang and Kota Sentosa, are state seats within the Stampin parliamentary constituency.

The party acknowledges that it has to push its message harder, but this is proving difficult.

At Kampung Landeh, where the majority are Malay voters, it has decided not to put up banners or flags after hooligans threatened the party workers with violence.

At Kota Padawan, its banners and flags have been burned or torn down by certain groups who demanded protection money from DAP.

The banners and flags put up by the SUPP remained undisturbed.

Batu Kawah has 20,664 registered voters, with Malay/Melanau numbering 3840, Chinese, 11,274 , Iban (1,853), Bidayuh (3,619), Orang Ulu (20) and others, 49.

In Kota Sentosa, the DAP knows that it has win over more ordinary votes to counter the 3,000 postal votes from the soldiers at the Penrissen Camp.

There are over 5,000 new ordinary voters registered in Kota Sentosa since the 2006 state elections.
Despite the presence of the postal voters, the DAP is optimistic that its candidate Chong Chieng Jen can retain Kota Sentosa despite the challenge from SUPP-BN candidate Datuk Alfred Yap Chin Loi.

In Pending, the incumbent DAP candidate Violet Yong Wui Wui is up against internationally renown cardiologist, Prof Dr Sim Kian Hui.

On paper, Yong has a good chance of retaining Pending. In 2006 elections, she won with a majority of 4,372 votes against SUPP secretary-general Datuk Sim Kheng Hui.

One of the most amazing things about Pending is that the number of registered voters has decreased. In 2006, the number of registered voters was 29,503 but for the 2011 election, it dropped to 29,488.

The Pakatan Rakyat has complained that many of the Pending voters have been transferred to Kota Sentosa to increase SUPP's chances of winning there. The transferred voters are said to be hardcore SUPP supporters.

Over at Padungan, the presence of Independent Dominique Ng Kim Ho, the incumbent who won in 2006 on a PKR ticket, may act as spoiler for the DAP candidate Wong King Wei .

In 2006 election, Ng won with a majority of 1,417 votes but was dropped from this year's state polls after PKR did a seat swap with DAP by exchanging Padungan for Batu Lintang.

DAP leaders believe they have a slight edge in Padungan for now but this could be reversed if Ng is able to get 1,000 votes, which would effectively hand over the win to SUPP-BN candidate Sim Khiang Chiok.

Meanwhile, the BN-SUPP candidates for the Kuching City seats have been stressing on continued development in their campaigns.

They have maintained that a victory for the opposition is a rejection of projects and development funds from the federal government.

"What can the DAP do, apart from barking loudly," said Yap, who is facing DAP's Chong in Kota Sentosa.

With polling day less than a week away, SUPP sources say only about 15% of the voters in the Kuching City seats have not made up their minds yet.

And though DAP is pulling in the crowds at its ceramah, in the end, it's the party that is able to get its message -- whether it is development, or promises of change - through to voters effectively that will have the upper hand.

"We have to win them over to our side," said Janet Tan, a SUPP campaign worker.

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