S’wak polls expected in Oct/Nov, decoupled from 13th GE

Wong Choon Mei, Malaysia Chronicle

It looks like the 10th Sarawak state elections will be held either in October or November this year, gauging from the noises coming from the federal government. But this does not mean that Parliament will be dissolved anytime soon, in fact, national elections will probably take place only a year after the Sarawak polls.

“This goes against the theory held by many politicians especially those in the Pakatan Rakyat. They think it will be suicide for BN if Sarawak and the general elections are held separately but that is not true,” an Umno watcher told Malaysia Chronicle.

“We are certain BN will retain the state government in Sarawak despite the smear campaigns against Chief Minister Taib Mahmud. This gives us the psychological edge when we go into the general election later on.”

Confident of increasing state and federal seats

Nonetheless, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim and his Pakatan Rakyat coalition were upbeat about their chances.

“In 2008, the BN said we had no chance at all but we swept 5 states. Now, they are playing the same record again, they are trying to demoralize us,” PKR Youth Chief Shamsul Iskandar Akin told Malaysia Chronicle.

Even Anwar has said Pakatan did not need to wrest the state administration from Taib to topple the federal government. But he was confident Pakatan would be able to increase its share of both state and parliamentary seats.

Currently, Pakatan controls 7 out of the 71-seat Sarawak legislative assembly, with 6 held by DAP and one by PKR. There are also 31 parliamentary seats, of which two are held by Pakatan through DAP in Bandar Kuching and Sibu.

“They can hold on to Sabah and Sarawak. Najib has been going there over and over again and (his wife) Rosmah even went there to sing,” Anwar told a recent ceramah.

“But when we can wrest a seat in Sarawak (Sibu), it is a clear indication that the BN fortress has begun to crumble. All we need is less than half the seats in Sarawak and a few in Sabah, and Insyallah (God willing), we will take on Putrajaya.”

BN still has upper hand

Indeed, Sarawak has been in focus of late. Not only has Prime Minister Najib Razak been visiting the state and its neighbor Sabah with unprecedented frequency, a string of ‘pre-election’ goodies has even been announced and more will be on the way.

Pundits say school holidays as well as weather conditions are important when fixing the date especially when a large chunk of Sarawak's 2 million-odd population still live in rural areas, with many still clustered in the remote interior.

In particular, the authorities will want the monsoon winds to blow safely out of the way to avoid chaotic campaigning and balloting conditions.

The latest opinion poll also shows Taib still holds the upper hand, with 64 percent of respondents saying they would vote BN. This is one percentage point higher than in the 9th state elections held in 2006.

Nearly two-thirds or 65.6 percent of respondents were confident they could keep their jobs for the next year while 59.2 percent were upbeat about the country’s future, even though almost half of those polled expressed a general dissatisfaction with the economy.