COMMENT: Sarawak’s 11th state election is getting nearer with many political pundits predicting it to be held in the first quarter of next year.
If that’s true it’s hardly four months away, no wonder the grounds are busy as political parties move to consolidate their positions.
Leading Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB)’s thrust is Chief Minister Adenan Satem himself, who last Sunday was in Kanowit where he said he would still like to have nine-term incumbent Gramong Juna to defend his state seat of Machan.
Having served the area for 37 straight years, there is no questioning Gramong’s staying power, therefore, it is not at all difficult to see why Adenan still favours him.
Adenan did say something about injecting more elements of youth in his next government, it probably fits his plan to retain Gramong, a man of few words but capable of objective observation, to balance youthfulness and experience.
PBB will be hard to beat anywhere come the 11th state polls all because the issue of candidacy is not contentious, or rather, not openly contentious.
Adenan says he would like to have Gramong on board still. That’s it.
So Gramong it will be, unless the veteran politician says he has had enough.
The scenario is about similar in Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) which looks likely to retain most of its incumbents.
So far only Joseph Mauh has said he is ready to relinquish his Tamin state seat where party president James Masing is said to have a choice between two potentials.
On the whole, the state Barisan Nasional (BN) is ready to roll. Even Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) have already identified their respective candidates.
And they too have been working the political grounds.
SUPP president Dr Sim Kui Hian and his boys aren’t hanging around their headquarters nowadays. They are out in the field – in Opar, Bengoh, Engkilili, Bawang Assan, etc. where the votes are.
SUPP knows what it is doing and is not about to be distracted by rival United People’s Party (UPP) which is claiming most if not all 19 seats traditionally allocated to the oldest party in the state.
SUPP has decided its 19 seats are non-negotiable. It is like saying, if it must lose these seats it will have to be in a democratic manner. Let the people decide come state polls.
Nothing can be fairer than that, but UPP wants an easy way out. It wants to sit down with SUPP and discuss how SUPP can give its seats on a silver platter to UPP!
UPP president Wong Soon Koh thinks that he is in the position to bring SUPP to that kind of discussion. By intimation, he is saying that, that is what state BN chairman Adenan wants.
But is that what Adenan really want? Is it reconciliation or getting SUPP to agree to give seats to UPP that Adenan wants?
If news reports are anything to go by, it would seem Wong’s letter or letters to SUPP is or are about seat allocation; not reconciliation.
That being the case, no wonder Sim and his boys prefer to go to the ground instead of hanging around the party headquarters and worrying over Wong’s letter or letters.
How many letters actually had Wong written to SUPP?
He said they had written “more than twice”. Could the UPP people have been writing more than half a dozen times? Or a dozen times?
That’s really too many letters on just one matter – seat allocation!
UPP should just write in to say, let us be friends; let us be one; let us fight this fight together like the old days.
Wong should add, I am not important, if all it takes is my departure from politics to unite the Chinese, so be it. The Chinese community is more important than me.
If that had been the content of his first letter, SUPP would have no good reason to refuse his overture.
Or, waited for him to write a dozen letters!-The Ant Daily
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