[侧眼看世界]Analysis the urban voters in Sarawak State Election

As expected, the BN Sarawak had sworn back as the government after the state election. Although BN won 62 seats out of total 71 seats in the just concluded election, but the opposition had a break through result in the urban area, they won 9 seats. This is sign of urban voter revolt against the Taib leading government.

Main reasons of urban voter revolt

• Hike of petrol price
• Land title issue &
• Other mischievous local issues

The hike of petrol price that brings the chain reaction of inflation had worsened the economy. The urban people will feel the most compare to rural area people who use the vehicle lesser. However, I cannot deny that the petrol hike does impact on the rural people especially the rural poor. My guru told me that a package of instant noodle can sell as high as RM 2-5 rinngit in Sarawak remote area compare to its original price only RM 0.20.

The other issues that bothering Sarawak urban resident is the land tile issue. 60 years land title in Sarawak is going to expired soon but this unresolved after many years. Land properties are one of the major assets for urban resident to keep their wealth. Sarawakian are uncertain that they can renew their land tilte and how much they need to pay (rumour of much higher fees).

SUPP is unlucky that become the bad luck to shoulder all the burden of the corrupted BN Sarawak state government that lead by PBB Taib Mahmud. The CM, Taib Mahmud quickly blamed the lost due to betting & SUPP. I’m just pity George Chan, the SUPP president.

A lot of people would like to analysts that Sarawak Chinese swing to opposition and blah blah so on. Here I’ll like to stress that it’s not simple as ethnic/race swing in this particular state election. As the title said, it’s Sarawak urban voter revolt. Take an example, Kuching city. Kuching City divided into 2 municipal council and consist of 5 state seats. Out these 5, DAP grabbed 3 (Kota Sentosa, Pending & Batu Lintnag) , Keadilan won 1(Padungan) and SUPP retained 1 (Batu Kawah). Why urban voter vote against BN? Are they angry ?

If include all the urban seats in Sarawak, actually BN won 8 and opposition won 8 (DAP 6, SNAP 1 & ADIL 1). In 3 areas, SUPP only managed to won with majority lesser than 300 votes (Sibu area). If you compare the total votes gain by both BN & Oppositions, you will found that total SUPP-BN votes is lesser than oppositions in general(47:53).

Good job to my friend, Chin Tong and Weng San who work hard in Miri & Kuching in the past election.