Voting will be closed at 5pm but for areas far in the interior regions with a small number of voters, the centres will be closed earlier.
KUCHING: Sarawakians are standing on the threshold of choice – to re-elect Barisan Nasioanal and endorse Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s impassioned plea to ‘trust’ him and ‘vote for transformation’ or to risk ‘everything’ and throw their support behind Anwar Ibrahim and the Pakatan Rakyat coalition’s call for ‘change’.
Some 979,796 voters in 71 constituencies across the state have begun casting their votes this morning in 1,749 polling stations.
In this election it is all about Najib and his BN and less about Taib Mahmud and the Sarawak BN coalition of Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB), Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) and Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP).
The Sarawak BN is contesting in all 71 constituencies while PKR is standing 49, DAP (15) and PAS (5).
Also opposing BN are Sarawak National Party (Snap) which is contesting in 26 seats, Parti Cinta Malaysia (PCM) is challenging its rival in six areas while some 41 independent candidates have joined the fray.
In all the Sarawak 2011 state election sees a record breaking 213 candidates, many of whom are political novices.
There are simply too many seats to watch in this election but of keen interest would be the constituencies of Sarawak BN’s top leaders.
In Balingian Taib faces his toughest challenger ever in Salleh Jafaruddin, his cousin, who is standing as an independent under the auspicies of the Movement of Change Sarawak (MoCS).
Salleh, whose political history with Taib dates back to the 1980s, has turned the tables on Taib with his insider details of Taib’s excesses, greedy and political manipulations.
Colouring this fight is tales of ‘foreign witchcraft’ and local bomohs and gangsters allegedly hired by Taib’s wealthy sister Raziah and her Australian Lebanese husband Robert Geneid, who was also behind the marriage of Taib to young second wife Ragat.
Seeking divine support
Raziah, who has much of her wealth and millions of ringgit worth of contracts at stake, had in the final 48 hours allegedly brought into Mukah and Balingian gangsters to interrupt opposition ceramahs and intimidate locals into voting for Taib.
As late as Thursday morning, Taib looked set to lose his seats but word from Balingian last night alleged that bags full of cash had filtered into hundreds of homes in the constituency.
Meanwhile in Layar, deputy chief minister Alfred Jabu Numpang is also battling for continuance and is fervently hoping for divine intervention.
Jabu who has held the seat for 36 years is in a four-cornered fight.
In the fray are former police officers Tedewin Ngumbang, who was also the ex-information chief of BN-PRS, PKR’s Stanley Ngumbat and bank-officer Joe Unggang from Snap.
All three have ‘insider’ information about Jabu’s mismanagement of Salcra oil palm plantations and widespread corrupt practices.
Here too, ground reports indicate Jabu, who is PBB deputy president and poised to take over as CM if Taib loses his seat, to be on the losing end.
Over in Piasau, yet another deputy chief minister George Chan is poised to crash. Set to bring him down is young DAP lawyer Ling Sie Kiong.
Until Valentine’s Day recently, the political rookie was busy working in Karpal Singh’s firm. But in the last two months Ling has thrown himself into wooing the Piasau crowd.
Embattled Chan, who is SUPP president, has been unable to recover from the party’s humiliating defeat in the 2006 polls when it lost six seats to opposition DAP.
This time round observers said SUPP will be ‘wiped out much like Gerakan (in the peninsular).’
With the state’s 28% Chinese community, SUPP and its well over 60-year old ruling lords are politically irrelevant and no match to DAP’s young stallions and engaging women leaders.
First result by 8pm
Polling started at 8am with 961,433 people eligible to vote in the 71 constituencies. Postal voting for 18,363 voters had been carried out earlier.
There will be straight fights in 27 constituencies, three-cornered fights in 23 constituencies, 17 (four-cornered), two (five-cornered) while two constituencies will face six-cornered fights.
The voters will cast their ballots at 1,748 the polling centres throughout the state which is the size of peninsular Malaysia and polling would be carried out in stages as there were voters living in the interior areas. Schools, longhouses and community halls were being used as polling centres.
The constituency with the largest number of voters is Pending (29,498 voters) while the least number of voters is in Ba’Kelalan (6,958).
Helicopters are being used in 15 voting centres.
Voting would be closed at 5pm but for areas far in the interior regions with a small number of voters, the centres would be closed earlier. The first result of the election was expected at about 8pm.
KUCHING: Sarawakians are standing on the threshold of choice – to re-elect Barisan Nasioanal and endorse Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s impassioned plea to ‘trust’ him and ‘vote for transformation’ or to risk ‘everything’ and throw their support behind Anwar Ibrahim and the Pakatan Rakyat coalition’s call for ‘change’.Some 979,796 voters in 71 constituencies across the state have begun casting their votes this morning in 1,749 polling stations.
In this election it is all about Najib and his BN and less about Taib Mahmud and the Sarawak BN coalition of Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB), Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) and Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP).
The Sarawak BN is contesting in all 71 constituencies while PKR is standing 49, DAP (15) and PAS (5).
Also opposing BN are Sarawak National Party (Snap) which is contesting in 26 seats, Parti Cinta Malaysia (PCM) is challenging its rival in six areas while some 41 independent candidates have joined the fray.
In all the Sarawak 2011 state election sees a record breaking 213 candidates, many of whom are political novices.
There are simply too many seats to watch in this election but of keen interest would be the constituencies of Sarawak BN’s top leaders.
In Balingian Taib faces his toughest challenger ever in Salleh Jafaruddin, his cousin, who is standing as an independent under the auspicies of the Movement of Change Sarawak (MoCS).
Salleh, whose political history with Taib dates back to the 1980s, has turned the tables on Taib with his insider details of Taib’s excesses, greedy and political manipulations.
Colouring this fight is tales of ‘foreign witchcraft’ and local bomohs and gangsters allegedly hired by Taib’s wealthy sister Raziah and her Australian Lebanese husband Robert Geneid, who was also behind the marriage of Taib to young second wife Ragat.
Seeking divine support
Raziah, who has much of her wealth and millions of ringgit worth of contracts at stake, had in the final 48 hours allegedly brought into Mukah and Balingian gangsters to interrupt opposition ceramahs and intimidate locals into voting for Taib.
As late as Thursday morning, Taib looked set to lose his seats but word from Balingian last night alleged that bags full of cash had filtered into hundreds of homes in the constituency.
Meanwhile in Layar, deputy chief minister Alfred Jabu Numpang is also battling for continuance and is fervently hoping for divine intervention.
Jabu who has held the seat for 36 years is in a four-cornered fight.
In the fray are former police officers Tedewin Ngumbang, who was also the ex-information chief of BN-PRS, PKR’s Stanley Ngumbat and bank-officer Joe Unggang from Snap.
All three have ‘insider’ information about Jabu’s mismanagement of Salcra oil palm plantations and widespread corrupt practices.
Here too, ground reports indicate Jabu, who is PBB deputy president and poised to take over as CM if Taib loses his seat, to be on the losing end.
Over in Piasau, yet another deputy chief minister George Chan is poised to crash. Set to bring him down is young DAP lawyer Ling Sie Kiong.
Until Valentine’s Day recently, the political rookie was busy working in Karpal Singh’s firm. But in the last two months Ling has thrown himself into wooing the Piasau crowd.
Embattled Chan, who is SUPP president, has been unable to recover from the party’s humiliating defeat in the 2006 polls when it lost six seats to opposition DAP.
This time round observers said SUPP will be ‘wiped out much like Gerakan (in the peninsular).’
With the state’s 28% Chinese community, SUPP and its well over 60-year old ruling lords are politically irrelevant and no match to DAP’s young stallions and engaging women leaders.
First result by 8pm
Polling started at 8am with 961,433 people eligible to vote in the 71 constituencies. Postal voting for 18,363 voters had been carried out earlier.
There will be straight fights in 27 constituencies, three-cornered fights in 23 constituencies, 17 (four-cornered), two (five-cornered) while two constituencies will face six-cornered fights.
The voters will cast their ballots at 1,748 the polling centres throughout the state which is the size of peninsular Malaysia and polling would be carried out in stages as there were voters living in the interior areas. Schools, longhouses and community halls were being used as polling centres.
The constituency with the largest number of voters is Pending (29,498 voters) while the least number of voters is in Ba’Kelalan (6,958).
Helicopters are being used in 15 voting centres.
Voting would be closed at 5pm but for areas far in the interior regions with a small number of voters, the centres would be closed earlier. The first result of the election was expected at about 8pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment