Young candidates seek to wrest rural seats from BN

S'WAK POLLS No treated water. No electricity. Maybe some dirt roads.

For some of the young opposition members slated to contest in Sarawak’s interior regions in the coming state election, such lack of development in their hometown is what drives them.

Although inexperienced and new to politics, they spoke passionately about causes they believed in, hoping the lack of development in their rural constituencies would help them win votes as well.

“It is not just me,” said Paren Nyawi, DAP’s candidate-designate for the border constituency of Katibas.

“When Sarawakians finish their studies, many would migrate to the cities (in Peninsular Malaysia) and work there.

“They would make comparisons whenever they come home, for holidays and so forth, and see the vast difference between Sarawak and the peninsula,” he told Malaysiakini in an interview on April 4.

The 35-year-old had been working in Kuala Lumpur as an auditor for 10 years, but now works as an aide to Sibu MP Oscar Ling, having joined DAP just last year.

Abandoned by development

Paren’s sentiments are shared by his Marudi PKR counterpart Elia Bit who studied in Shah Alam for a master’s degree in media and information warfare studies, before doing a short stint with Radio Free Sarawak.

Elia said her three-week tour of duty with Radio Free Sarawak last year was an eye-opener for her, not only on Sarawak’s lack of development, but also in her understanding of politics.

“When I read journals and research about my people, it says Malaysia is very good and we will be a developed country in 2020. People in Sabah and Sarawak are really rich, and all that.

“But when I go to the grassroots (to conduct interviews), it is totally different. A hundred percent different from what I’ve learnt and what you’d hope to see,” said the 28-year old.

Incidentally, PKR had been scouting for a candidate to contest in Marudi at the time, and Elia was roped in.

Asked how she intends to bring about change since Pakatan Harapan is unlikely to form the next state government, Elia offered an anecdote about a lamp post near her village, Long Lapok.

She said the lamp post was erected around 2010, but upon returning home after her studies last year, she found the lamp post was still not connected to any source of electricity.

She said she raised the issue in the media and within a month - in August last year - the lights went on.

“That’s why I told the villages there, ‘Actually, this work can be done within a month. Why did they hold it off for five years?’

“Can you imagine that? 2010 was before the 2013 general elections. They (BN parties) were using that issue (to play) development politics to win votes. Since they won the majority in 2013, they abandoned the project, just like that,” she said.

‘BN makes a lot of promises’

She conceded that her influence - whether as an opposition candidate or assemblyperson - is limited, but she could still raise issues in the press.

Likewise, Paren felt that the BN state government had been resting on its laurels after controlling the Katibas constituency for over 30 years.

He argued that a strong opposition is needed to hold the state government accountable and thus help spur development.

“We need political change, meaning that the people in Katibas and the interiors need to change in the coming election.

“We need an opposition that can speak out so that every abandoned project, every unfulfilled promise, and every issue can be resolved immediately.

“The problem is only in implementation because BN makes a lot of promises but fails on its delivery, and then it makes more promises in the following election,” he said

The aim, he said, is to break BN’s two-third majority in the state assembly.

BN held 55 out of 71 seats in the 2011 state election, compared to (then coalition) Pakatan Rakyat’s 15 seats, and one independent seat. There are now 82 seats up for grabs following last year’s redelineation exercise.

Championing women’s issues

Meanwhile, the DAP’s Pakan candidate-designate Rinda Juliza Alexander has been busy working under her party’s Impian Sarawak initiative to bring some basic amenities to the interior areas in her home constituency.

She said there had been three such projects in Pakan so far, and there is demand for more, although some village chiefs are hesitant to give permission for the projects, purportedly due to political pressure.

She claims some 70 percent of the longhouses in her constituency of just over 10,000 voters lack these amenities, and she hopes this would turn voters against BN.

However, it is women’s issues that the 31-year old former nurse is most eager to speak about in the state assembly, should she be elected.

“I feel that women’s (rights) need to be protected and championed, so there would be no more oppression,” she said.

Rinda stressed that women should be treated as equal to men, and should not be associated only with the kitchen or subjected to abuse.

Asked how she came to join politics, she said it started in 2013 when she returned home amid the 13th General Election, and felt the ‘winds of change’ in the air.

She opted to help DAP in its electoral campaign in Sibu, and taken a liking to politics.

Inspired by politician father

Her father, Alexander Seli, had been a politician as well.

He had once contested in elections under now-defunct Sarawak National Party’s (Snap) banner, and once as an independent, and is now working with DAP.

“He never pressured me into joining politics. Influence? Perhaps. When I was little, I remember seeing my father leave for his party activities, with DAP.

“Every election, he is rarely at home as he goes out with others to campaign for DAP in Meradong and Sarikei.

“Maybe from there, there is interest to jump from the medical field into politics. But he never pressured me to join politics,” she said.

The Election Commission (EC) has set April 25 for nomination day of the Sarawak state election, and Paren, Rinda, and Elia would be among hundreds of candidates submitting their candidacy.

Sarawak goes to the polls on May 7. -Mkini