OPINION: In between a minimum of eight weeks to the maximum possible of five months, the 11th Sarawak State Election has to be called by Chief Minister Adenan Satem. It is incumbent upon him to make the final decision although he will also likely consult with the prime minister.
Adenan has been in office since February 2014, which means a full two years in a month’s time and within that period, it is fair to say that he has garnered some popularity among the many races in the state with some prudent and well-accepted policies.
Sarawak held its last state election, the 10th, on 16 April 2011, which had seen the Barisan National (BN) returned to power with 55 out of the total of 71 seats in the state legislative assembly.
This had represented 77 per cent of all seats, although their total share of the popular votes was only 55 per cent. The biggest party within BN – the Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) on its own had garnered 49 per cent of all the seats contested, numbering 35, although they had collected only 28 per cent of the total votes (which is just over one quarter of the total votes cast.)
One must be amazed at the alleged blatant gerrymandering of electoral constituencies, which had seen very small state seats like Gedong which had 6,712 voters being compared with the four and a half times bigger seat of Pending with 30,881 voters (latest figures for the newly drawn 2015 extra 11 seats)!
This shows that the urban seat of Pending only has the representation equivalent to one quarter that of the rural seat of Gedong – this is certainly not democracy at work here! Most definitely not the “one man one vote” rule as it should be.
They say figures do not lie. They also say that sometimes figures can be manipulated to distort the truth or the true picture. This time, these figures show how the last state elections had cheated Sarawak voters of their right to proportionate representation in the state assembly.
How can it be fair when 41 per cent of the votes which had gone to the opposition parties namely DAP and PKR which together had only secured 15 seats, representing only 21 per cent of the total assembly (half of its popular vote)?
The way that the extra 11 seats had been carved out of their geographical and demographic areas to give the next state election a new total of 82 seats also means that the much smaller constituencies will again influence the total results.
As such, no matter how well the opposition grouping will perform, chances are that there is no way that they can in reality win more than a handful of new seats even if their vote count in total is more than 51 per cent!
But amidst all these odds against them, I still firmly believe that the opposition can gain quite a number of new seats, as well as keeping what they have in the present assembly.
I also predict that of the BN parties, the main backbone party of PBB will perform extremely well, and if they go for 40 seats (five more than previously) they should win them all quite comfortably.
However, there is that danger of losing one or two seats if there is any local infighting between candidates picked and dropped, but overall PBB is pretty secure.
PRS looks quite safe too, unless some disgruntled strongmen, not nominated or dropped, go against party discipline and stand as independents.
DAP should gain between two to five new seats – it will wipe out all the Chinese candidates put out by SUPP and may gain some ground in the mixed seats where Dayak voters may influence the outcome.
With luck, PKR may gain a lot more new votes but will not be able to break through the curse of gerrymandering. The party may at most win one or two new seats to what they already have. All three incumbents look secure.
I would say that Sarawak voters will give both PAS and independents a pass this time round.
I also cannot see Adenan agreeing to any of the breakaway parties of UPP (United People’s Party) and Teras nominating any direct candidates – they might have to be content with using the SUPP banner to contest, and the SPDP banner as well.
That’s the reality on the ground folks, although many would wish that there would be many dramatic changes – for once I too would be very happy to be proven wrong!-The Ant Daily
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