News Categories

general politics economy sports community

Thursday, February 28, 2013

No chance for opposition in Mas Gading, Serian and Mambong




Chinese in Bau are for BN-SPDP Anthony Nogeh Gumbek.
KUCHING: Political observers said the opposition’s hope of winning the three Bidayuh majority seats of Serian, Mambong and Mas Gading looks to be nothing more than a dream which they will never realise.
They said this was so because the Bidayuh voters have already set their mind not to support the party as it is their understanding that DAP is a Chinese based party that will only fight for the Chinese rights while PKR is a Semenanjung based that will never look after the natives in Sarawak .
The Bidayuh already have enough of SUPP, the Sarawak Chinese based party which is now being rejected by the Chinese themselves but still being accepted in two state constituencies which are Bidayuh-majority area of Opar and Bengoh and Serian Parliamentary seats.
“The reason why they voted SUPP was because the voters have no choice – they still prefer BN and only through SUPP their wish to be in BN are granted or maybe because of the personalities – Datuk Richard Riot (Serian), Dr Jerip Susil (Bengoh) and Ranum Mina (Opar).
“If not the voters would prefer to be represented by other three BN component parties, either PBB, SPDP or PRS,” they said.
DAP has been promoting Bandar Kuching MP’s special assistant and former reporter Mordi Bimol as the likely candidate for Mas Gading while in Serian will be the branch chairman Edward Andrew Luwak and PKR Willie Mongin in Mambong.
A political observer, who is a senior lecturer and head of publication in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) Dr Ahli Sarok said it was impossible for any opposition candidate to win the Bidayuh-majority seat.
He said DAP have their branch in the constituency but not at the village level like what the BN component parties have.
“Without their branches at village level how can they mobilise their machineries to win support from the voters at the grass root level?,” asked Dr Ahli who does political science and public sector management research at Unimas.
He said the Bidayuh voters will not vote for candidates who are young, inexperienced and have no credibility.
Dr Ahi however said based on the trends in the previous parliamentary and state general election the opposition candidates will still receive quite good number of sympathy votes in the Bidayuh-majority areas.
He said the trend in past Parliamentary elections showed that candidates from the opposition parties usually garnered more than 7,000 votes.
According to Dr Ahi, PKR would have stronger support in the Bidayuh-majority area compare to DAP and PAS.
He was quick to caution the Bidayuh on whether the Pakatan Rakyat government will look into the welfare and the interest of the Bidayuh as compare to the BN government.
“Will the Bidayuh YBs from DAP and PKR be given positions in the federal government?” he asked again.
He said there is no way Willie Mongin (PKR) and Mordi (DAP) will be given any post in the federal cabinet because both are without position in the party in the federal level.
In contrast he said Datuk Richard Riot is the deputy president of SUPP and Datuk Dr James Dawos is the Supreme Council member of PBB and both are deputy ministers in the federal cabinet.
STAR office and BN Tasik Biru Service centre is side by side in Bau town. Why?
"Pakatan Rakyat has no interest in Bidayuh and even if they form the next government they will not fight for the Bidayuh interests,” he added.
Dr Ahi said DAP intention to filed one or two Bidayuh in the general election was just to show that they are a multi-racial party.
On the Bidayuh worries that if DAP in the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) govern the state and country they would lose their rights, especially their Native Customary Rights (NCR) lands which are their only asset, Dr Ahi said that is yet to be seen.
The Bidayuh most fear is when the Pakatan Rakyat government especially DAP fight for the amendment to the Land Code to allow the non-Bumiputera to purchase and own NCR land.
Should this happen money will splash around and most of the Bidayuh will lose their NCR land.
“That may happen if Pakatan Rakyat takes over the state government but then they have to amend the state land code and the state election is still four more years to come,” said Dr Ahi.
DAP has announced its intention to field its candidates in Mas Gading and Serian but political observers are of the opinion that PKR would be more acceptable in these two constituencies.
In Mas Gading, the ‘hottest’ there are expected to be stiff competition not only among BN potential candidates but also among the opposition parties.
Within BN, the potential candidates from Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) and BN Club have been going around to promote themselves.
As for BN, SPDP has been promoting Salcra deputy general manager Anthony Nogeh Gumbek but the illegal BN Club has also been organising events to promote Dr Tiki in the hope he would be re-nominated as direct BN candidate.
Pakatan Rakyat allies DAP and PKR are also vying among themselves for the right to represent the opposition pact to contest in the constituency.
Recently State Reform Party (STAR) announced it was determined to put up a candidate and even urged Pakatan to stay out from Mas Gading.
STAR vice-president Patrick Anek Uren claimed STAR was the strongest in Mas Gading and would focus all its resources there.
He said STAR, which is the political vehicle of United Borneo Front (UBF), had informally made known its intentions to Pakatan leaders and hoped that the opposition alliance would respect its wishes to pave the way for the party to have straight fight against BN.
Anek, a former Mas Gading MP from 1974 to 1986 and Tasik Biru assemblyman from 1974 to 1983 under SNAP, said if DAP and PKR refused to give way, then the two constituencies would see multi-cornered fights.
DAP has been promoting Bandar Kuching MP’s special assistant and former reporter Mordi Bimol as the likely candidate for Mas Gading.
PKR, on the other hand, roused speculation that it was also interested in the seat after its de-facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim visited two villages there last month.
Kampung Rukam village chief Charles Chonggat said the people in Biawak and Lundu will not vote for the opposition party candidates especially DAP candidate.
“The people in these two areas still strongly believe in the BN government,” he said.
He said DAP candidate have no chance to win there as he have no support from the people in the area.
“Even other opposition party candidates and Independent candidates would also not win in Mas Gading,” he added.
In Serian DAP is propsing to field the branch chairman Edward Andrew Luwak but the latter had said Serian branch will adhere to the decision of Pakatan Rakyat’s top leadership on the candidate for the seat.
Andrew said the branch has been consistent in this stand to leave it to the top leaders in Pakatan to pick the candidate.
“We believe they are prudent and able to pick a winnable candidate whether from DAP or PKR to take on Barisan Nasional in seats including Serian. We are not fighting a mosquito party here, we are fighting a giant,” he said.
It has been reported that a group from PKR is lobbying for the party’s candidates to be nominated in all three Bidayuh-majority seats of Mas Gading, Mambong and Serian.
Except for Mambong, PKR’s interest in Mas Gading and Serian was seen by some quarters as a last minute ditch considering DAP has been doing more groundwork in those seats since 2011.
Andrew said DAP Serian branch has been moving on the ground since 2011 after the branch was re-activated that year following a dormant period.
He said the branch has organised activities to promote the party to the people in Serian, telling voters DAP is not Chinese-based party as portrayed by its detractors.
“Through our programmes, we were able to tell the people in rural areas that DAP is not a party that fights only for the interests of the Chinese. They are now more aware that DAP’s struggle is for all Malaysians including Dayaks and Malays in Serian,” he said.
Serian, a Bidayuh majority seat comprising Tebedu and Kedup state seats, was represented by BN component SUPP deputy president Datuk Richard Riot for five terms.
If DAP gets picked for the seat, it will be the first time it has contested in Serian.
DAP and PKR have yet to resolve overlapping claims in several of the 31 parliamentary seats in the state.
Some 60% of Sarawak PKR’s candidates in the coming 13th general election are likely to be professionals but ‘political novices’.
Taking the que from Sarawak DAP, opposition PKR is set to field greenhorns in the 13th general election which will see contest in 31 parliamentary seats in the state.
Both state DAP and PKR are reportedly vying for 12 seats each. The more confident of the two is DAP having scored unprecedented win in last April’s state election.
DAP won 12 of the 15 seats it contested literally wiping off Sarawak political landscape of BN’s SUPP.
PKR on its part contested in 49 seats but only managed to win three seats in Ba’ Kelalan, Krian and Batu Lintang.
Going into the 13th GE, DAP has already revealed that about 50% of the candidates would be in their 20s and are graduates.
PKR on its part has declared that at least 60% of its potential YBs would be below 40-years old.
According to PKR Election Committee Secretariat’s state representative Baharuddin Mokhsen although the candidates were “political novices” they were professionals and “highly intellectual.”
“It won’t be easy to intimidate them.  Most importantly, their youthful presence would appeal to the young voters,” he reportedly said.
Baharuddin said seat negotiations between component parties of Pakatan Rakyat were moving along well “except for certain seats.”

Read full article>>
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Chatbox

 
Powered by Blogger