By Mohd Noor Firdaus Mohd Azil
KUCHING, March 25 (Bernama) -- Introducing new faces alone will not be enough for Barisan Nasional to recapture urban seats that it lost to the opposition in Sarawak, according to political analysts.
They said that BN leaders must mingle more with the people to explain or resolve issues of interest to the urban electorate, especially the Chinese who are the majority in these constituencies.
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak lecturer Dr Jeniri Amir said that BN leaders must demonstrate that they were ready to address the concerns of the voters on such issues as education and business opportunities.
In the 2006 state election, the DAP snatched from BN Pending and Batu Lintang while PKR took Padungan. All three had been held by SUPP.
The DAP also won the newly created constituency of Kota Sentosa.
Political blogger Norizan Shariff said that SUPP, the voice of the Chinese in the Sarawak BN, need to play a bigger role in the urban areas.
To be effective, it must first eradicate alleged factionalism in the party, she said.
Norizan said that SUPP could exploit the bickering among opposition parties over the allocation of seats if it did not have internal problems of its own.
Holder of the Tun Abdul Ghafar Baba Chair at the Sultan Idris Teaching University Prof Datuk Dr Zainal Kling said that SUPP, among other BN parties, must convince the Chinese community that whatever problems they faced now would not be resolved with a change of administration.
Zainal said that SUPP and the other BN parties must impress upon Chinese voters that they would make things worse for themselves if they heeded too much insinuations of the DAP.
Lecturer Md Shukri Shuib of Universiti Utara Malaysia said that the only way for BN to win back the urban constituencies was to prove that "they alone can solve problems that the voters face."
Barisan leaders must show their sincerity and must not be seen to be interested in the welfare of voters only during elections, he said.
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