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Sarawak State in Borneo Goes to Polls
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - One of the most indigenously-populated states in the Malaysian federation, Sarawak, will go to the polls on September 27th after its parliament's dissolution on Monday.
Candidates will have nine days to campaign and 62 state seats are at stake.
A total of 868,487 registered voters are eligible to cast their votes. Of these, 850,761 are regular voters while 17,726 are postal voters.
In the last state election, there were 814,347 registered voters. The ruling coalition, the National Front (NF), won 57 seats, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) three, while independents captured two seats.
The ruling coalition under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said it was confident it would win a bigger victory this time.
These elections are said to be the most tense in years, with the opposition National Justice Party (NJP) of jailed Malay leader Anwar Ibrahim contesting in 25 constituencies.
The NJP said it did not stand a chance to win, but wanted to grab Malay-Muslim votes in the state.
It said the Malaysian government has halted its plans for Sarawak by arresting ten NJP members who were campaigning in the state since the beginning of the year.
The ten were arrested under the infamous Internal Security Act (ISA), and among them was the popular opposition politician, Ezam Mohamad Noor, who is now being detained for two years without trial.
They have been accused, among others charges, of attempting to bring chaos to the state of Sarawak. The NJP said their arrests and subsequent jailing was done in order to facilitate another victory for the NF.
Sources in Kuala Lumpur said Sarawak Malays, especially in urban areas, would vote for the opposition because the community has been sidelined both economically and politically, NJP-Sarawak secretary-general Wan Zainal Wan Sanusi said.
Observers added that if Malays vote for the NJP, it would be a boost for the party of Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, the wife of Anwar Ibrahim, and also represent a serious setback for the ruling United Malay National Organization (UMNO).
The UMNO has lost considerable support from peninsular Malays, mostly from those living in the northern coastal Malay belt where the party Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) controls two major Malay states.
Further eroding the Malay vote, migration from the UMNO to the opposition may undermine the role of the UMNO from within the NF, sources said.
Speaking at a press conference at the party's headquarters in Kuching Wednesday afternoon, Wan Zainal said the tide was already turning against Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud's administration because "the Malays here think they are not being given a fair share of the economic cake".
"The Malays are longing for a change," said Wan Zainal.
Elections in Sarawak in 1999 were plagued with phantom voters, the opposition said.
They added that Filipino citizens were allowed to vote for the ruling coalition in the last parliamentary elections. The electoral commission announced on Monday that 5,676 names of non-citizens have been removed from the roll in recent months.
A total of 1,048 schools, long houses (424), and other centers, would be used as polling centers for the election.
In some areas, polling would be conducted on a staggered basis to allow election officials to cover more areas in the interior.
The local government in Sarawak has allocated RM22.2 million ($1 = RM3.80) for the Election Commission to conduct the election.
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