will be known. And changed and changing circumstances -- epitomised especialy by Najib Razak's ascension to the UMNO throne, and by default in more ways than wan, also becoming Malaysia's sixth Prime Minister, followed in swift and unbecoming fashion the release of 13 ISA detainees and return of the lamb Dr Mahathir Mohamad, to the UMNO shepherd's arms in hasty embrace! -- it's now on the shoulders of the electors who determine two state constituencies' WAKIL RAKYAT, and one PARLIAMENTARIAN's seat.
In gist, the VIPs are now casting their "V"otes, and YL aka Desi, prays the process of "CHANGE" epitomised (Yeah, somhow I like such BIG words this morn/moUrn!) by March 8,2008 will continue. I will buy endless rounds of tehtarik if you join the celebs at Temiang Korner in Furong where I'll be wit' a band of diehard supporters ( fow whom I will not for the life of my penyokong tell, but my belle rings for PR of which I can claim some expertiseeh?:)
BUKIT GANTANG (P59):
55,562 VOTERS:
Desi's prediction:
Datuk Seri Mohamad Nizar Jamaluddin (PAS) wins by about 5,000-vote majority.
BUKIT SELAMBAU (N25):
35,140 VOTERS:
Desi's prediction:
S. Manikkumar (PKR) wins by about 1,000-vote majority.
BATANG AI (N29):
8.,006 VOTERS:
Desi's prediction:
Either BN or PKR candidate wins -- BY A WHISKER, and I have a bot of whiskey at hand
for you bubblers in Sarawak who enjoy a glass or too by Tehtari'!
LET'S DANCE TONIGHT!
Puerh, my dearie?
PS by Poster too known as FOOLofERRATA sometimes, and FULLofEROTICA by default somedimes:
Jest for the record! From The Malaysian Insider @9.29AM April7,2009:
Dr M vs Anwar rematch in Bkt Selambau
By Shannon Teoh
SUNGAI PETANI, April 6 – Some 11 years after sacking him as deputy prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad will go head on against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in a grand finale for the Bukit Selambau state seat.
Having just rejoined Umno, the former prime minister will arrive in Bukit Selambau at 5.30pm today to put the finishing touches on a Barisan Nasional campaign that appears to have whittled away the 2,362-vote margin it lost by in the last general election.
Meanwhile, the opposition leader will start work earlier in an attempt to reduce gains made by BN before addressing a final ceramah as campaigning officially ends at midnight.
Former Umno vice president Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Thamby Chik, a Mahathir loyalist, is already in town and believes his arrival will be “a real political factor” as it will not only bring back Umno supporters who deserted BN last year, but also help to tip over non-Malays who “still accord him the highest level of respect.”
“He is a special secret weapon whose presence will overcome internal bickering,” he said.
The final day of campaigning will be crucial, as most analyses are rating the polls at 50-50. Military intelligence sources as well as bookies believe it is too close to call with only police special branch giving BN a slight edge.
Both Umno and PKR back rooms however, seem to lean towards PKR coming into the final stretch a hair’s breadth ahead as Pakatan Rakyat’s machinery builds up steam while BN’s seem to already be looking to tomorrow’s balloting.
They also seem to agree that the Chinese votes will be firmly behind PKR while BN has the edge with the Malays despite the best efforts of Pas among heartland Malays.
But while it is likely that the 80 per cent sweep of Indian votes by PKR will not be repeated, there is uncertainty over exactly how many will swing to BN and this is the margin where the battle will be won or lost.
Reading Indian voters has been impossible due to defections going both ways, the initial uncertainty over Hindraf’s backing for PKR and MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu’s month-long campaign which nobody can say for sure is having a positive or negative effect.
Various factors have led to PKR candidate S. Manikumar being unlikely to maintain the advantage that previous incumbent V. Arumugam held.
The six Indian and six Malay independents will probably cancel out the effects on Manikumar and MIC’s Datuk S. Ganesan’s final tally and result in a scaling-down of the majority, whoever it goes to.
Sources say that the 13 independents will collect between 2,500 to 3,000 votes in total.
Lower turnouts are also normal for a by-election and total votes are estimated at just over 25,000.
But with this phenomenon usually more significant among non-Malays due to the voters being based outside of the constituency, it will work in Ganesan’s favour.
Despite Umno sources citing unhappiness among rural Chinese over the Pas-led state government, the majority will still go to PKR.
In fact, while Umno will bus in Malay voters, a BN campaign leader told The Malaysian Insider that both MCA and Gerakan are unlikely to do the same as outstation Chinese voters could not be counted on to vote for BN.
PKR election strategist Saifuddin Nasution acknowledges that it will not take four-fifths of Indian votes again, studies show a two-thirds approval of Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak among them.
Malays make up just over half of the electorate and BN has made inroads into the seven polling districts previously won by PR with up to three won by PR by just a handful of votes last year set to be turned over.
However, in the four Umno stronghold Malay districts, PKR believes it has made inroads.
“We will still lose those districts, but by reduced majorities,” Saifuddin said, adding that it has achieved this by targetting various opinion makers in local communities to swing pockets of Malay villagers.
Anwar will in fact, be making a visit to one such local leader tomorrow afternoon in a last-gasp bid to pin back gains made by Umno among Malays.
And then on to his final speech tonight, as he looks to put one back over his old boss.
UPDATEd @10.18AM:
Somethin' worth reading -- even as second helping as you brunch! -- from an olde horse still sprightly:) I know this guy from DAP days -- I envy his oratory in Bahasa Malaysia. He would have made a damned GOoD Parliamentary Speaker under PR -- hopes still spring eternal in some diehard HEarts!:):) -- YL
Hornbill Unleashed
April 7, 2009
My hazy crystal ball on polling day
Filed under: Alternatives, Media/Press, Politics — hornbillunleashed @ 7:36 am
Tags: Anak Sarawak, batang ai, Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau, By election, Kuching, Malaysia Politic, pkr, Sarawak politics, save sarawak, sim kwang yang, socio-economic, vote
By Sim Kwang Yang / SKY
By the time you read this, on Tuesday April 7, 2009, the fierce campaigns at the two Bukits and the one Batang would have been over, as voters queue up to cast their precious votes.
Since whatever I say would not change the outcome, or influence the moral of the campainers, I may as well join many of my fellow commentators and cast into cyber sphere my conjecture on the possible results at the end of this evening.
So I unpack my dusty and hazy crystal ball and gaze inside. I see a 2-1, for either BN or PR. A 3-0 clean sweep seems unlikely for either side.
Bukit Gantang
I think PAS will win in Bukit Gantang on the strength of the non-Malay support for their candidate Datuk Nizar. Of the 3 component parties of Pakatan Rakyat, PAS also has the best organised campaign machinery.
Bukit Selambau
Despite the large number of independent candidates, I think PKR can pull through with a victory though with a slim margin. As in Bukit Gantang, the ethnic composition of Bukit Selambau is such that the multiracial appeal of the party may just deliver enough votes for PKR to scrap through.
Batang Ai
In Batang Ai, BN should win with a larger majority than the 2006 general election.
I am a pessimist when it comes to electoral contests in Sarawak. If the party I support loses eventually, I will not be devastated. If it wins, then I can be pleasantly surprised.
In the last few days, I have been hearing negative noises about the PKR from Batang Ai. In a by-election like Batang Ai, when the Sarawak BN will concentrate all their vast resources on one single constituency, the opposition candidate will need a convergence of positive forces in order to win, maybe.
In Batang Ai, that convergence has been absent, especially in the last few days of campaign.
Young voters?
Young voters tend to support the opposition nationwide. For a constituency like Batang Ai, there are only old folks and young children still living in the longhouses. The young voters have all migrated to the Sarawak towns and even cities in West Malaysia in search of jobs and cash income. They are unlikely to get leave to go back to vote on a Tuesday. I have also not heard of any organised effort to make it easy for these young Ibans to return to Batang Ai to vote.
The opposition campaign seems to have run out of steam and cash in the last few days. Many strategic measures planned long before nomination days did not come to fruition. Somehow, the enthusiasm shown by PKR on nomination day just fizzled out in the end.
What was all that whisper about the mysterious big financial supporter behind PKR? What has happened to the People Power that they rely on?
Has Anwar Ibrahim decided that, when the party resources are stretched thin in three places, he would rather concentrate his attention on the Two Bukits? Fortunately for the PKR, the Menteri Besar of Selangor Datuk Khalid Ibrahim still stationed himself in Batang Ai in the last days of the campaign. At least some campaign bills got paid.
Waiting for a miracle
Still, I can be wrong, and PKR may come out as a winner; miracles do happen, and hope burns eternal in the breasts of men. Then, I will be pleasantly surprised.
If I am right, then there is some rethinking to do for the PKR. The worst thing is for them to start pointing fingers at one another. I am afraid that is exactly what they will do.
PKR leaders and supporters must realise that attending free dinners and listening to Anwar talk is one thing, but starting a new political movement to win elections is quite another. It takes years of hard work and sometimes it involves great sacrifice.
Then there is the problem of toxic assets. There is that fleet-footed chap in Julau who resigned from PKR and joined the BN instead. Any such defection on the eve of polling stinks of opportunism sky high. There may be more after the by-election is over. Good riddance to bad garbage, I say!
Looking ahead
A defeat at Batang Ai would not be so bad for PKR, as long as they sit back and take a long look at themselves. It will wake them up from the false euphoria fuelled by the so-called groundswell in recent months. It will remind them that doing politics on the ground is so very different from talking politics in coffee-shops.
Please do not bet on my predictions above. I have often been wrong in the past.
Win or lose, the Sarawak PKR will have to go back to the table and dissect the campaign with a scalpel without the instinctive impulse to blame one another. That in Sarawak politics is often too much to ask sometimes. No wonder the Sarawak BN can rule for so long without fear of the people.
(Kenyalang578@hotmail.com)
UPDATEd @5.55PM (remember that brand of ciggies? -- NO? That's also GOoD4Thee! I have no shares in tobeggo co:(
'Cos I am at my ER' beg&gall, hear's latest from Reuters as published by The MI:
Polls seen as referendum on new PM
TAIPING, April 7 – Voters turned out in large numbers on Tuesday in a tense by-election in the northern Malaysian state of Perak that is seen as a key test for the country’s new prime minister.
Amid a heavy police presence and soaring temperatures hundreds of supporters of the government and opposition faced off outside a polling station in this rural Malaysian constituency where a parliamentary seat is being contested.
The seat in Perak, which is being contested along with two state assembly posts, is especially tense as new Prime Minister Najib Razak led a putsch to oust the opposition-led state government.
“This by-election is not just about progress and promises of development but also about larger issues such as justice and corruption,” Ilham Abdul Aziz, a 32-year old businessman, who had just cast his vote.
By 12.15pm, turnout in the Perak constituency was 20 per cent, while in the state assembly seat in neighbouring Kedah it was 42 per cent and in a state seat in Sarawak on the island of Borneo it was 70 per cent, according to the Election Commission.
About 100,000 voters are eligible to vote in the three state seats, representing a major test for Najib just four days after he became prime minister.
The election results will not alter the national balance of power but analysts say Najib needs to win to put his stamp on the government and reverse a growing tide of public disappointment in the ruling coalition.
“If the BN or Pakatan were to win 3-0 tonight, a mini tsunami could inundate the political landscape,” the pro-government New Straits Times newspaper said on Tuesday. The ruling National Front coalition has lost two crucial by-elections since last August, after suffering its worst performance in the 2008 general election.
One of the by-elections returned opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to parliament.
Analysts say the ruling coalition stands a good chance of winning the Batang Ai state seat in Sarawak but faces a tough fight for the other two seats.
The Barisan, backed by influential former premier Mahathir Mohamad, has promised economic reforms as Malaysia faces its worst recession since the Asian financial crisis a decade ago.
But Najib, who took over from ex-premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi last Friday, also has his hands full to attempt to convince voters that he can clean up the Barisan and the main coalition party that he leads, Umno. – Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment