Rocket aims for a lofty target

The massive crowds at DAP’s first night ceramah in Kuching, Sibu and Miri may be a signal of a Chinese tsunami for Sarawak.

IT was the tiniest makeshift stage that most people had ever seen and if DAP leader Lim Guan Eng had held up his arms, he could have easily touched the aluminium roof.

But the crowd that stretched out before the Penang Chief Minister was the biggest the party had ever experienced for a first night ceramah in any election.

Even Tony Pua, the party’s national point man for the Kuching campaign, was surprised at the response. They knew the Chinese in Sarawak were restless but they had not expected this boiling point kind of sentiment.

And it was not just in Kuching. Pua showed some reporters images from his BlackBerry which his counterpart in Miri had sent over –the scene at an ongoing ceramah there was just as packed. It was the same in Sibu where DAP hopes to make the most gains.

DAP has been in Sarawak for years but its leaders have never seen anything like this. It looks like the DAP rocket is about to shoot really high in Sarawak as the Chinese prepare to send their clearest ever signal to the Taib Mahmud regime.

The Chinese like to say that one’s ears tend to itch when people talk about you. If that is true, then Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud’s ears could be itching like crazy over the next week.

The Chief Minister is the top ceramah topic for DAP and Lim’s oratory is peppered with mentions of Bai Mao, the Mandarin term for his snowy-white hair. In Kuching, where the Hokkiens are the majority, he is known as Peh Moh.

Lim is a star over here. His Johor style Hokkien sounds stilted in Penang but it fits right in with the Hokkien spoken here. He has clearly overtaken his father as an orator and his status lends him clout.

When he goes on stage, it is about one Chief Minister going for another Chief Minister. He does not have much to boast about as yet, but his state government is certainly nowhere as controversial as Taib’s.

DAP has only 15 candidates in the polls. Their average age is only 39 compared to SUPP whose candidates average out to 57.

But the fight between DAP and SUPP is not going to be about age, experience or credentials. These are key criteria in ordinary times but these are extraordinary times in Sarawak.

The urban contest is primarily about who dares to speak up, question state policies and most of all stand up to Bai Mao.

For instance, Pending incumbent Violet Yong shot to fame when she was suspended from the State Assembly for raising issues about land acquisition.

Few thought the pint-sized lawyer could take the heat when she won in 2006. But she is a star today, and definitely, the YB with the best hair because she never seems to have a bad hair day.

Yong is now facing Dr Sim Hui Hian, a brainy but awkward-looking cardiologist who is well-known in the capital.

Dr Sim is the sort of candidate that any party would love to have but he is fighting someone who has stood up to the powers-that-be and he will have to convince the voters he can do the same. That is what every SUPP man facing a DAP candidate is up against.

SUPP had the highest percentage of new faces among the Barisan component parties. But it is also the only Barisan party without a single woman among its 19 candidates. Having a woman in the line-up can lend a party a more contemporary image.

DAP has three women candidates – Yong and newcomer Christina Chiew in Kuching and the demure and sweet-looking Alice Lau in Sibu.

Alice’s candidature is a sign of the times. The Australian graduate is with DAP while her father Datuk Lau Cheng Kiong is a local strongman of SPDP, a Barisan component. He is also chairman of the Sibu United Chinese Association which makes him a big man in the local community.

Reporters in Sibu have been quite gaga over Alice, 29, and had asked her opponent and incumbent Datuk Seri Wong Soon Koh, 69, how he felt about having to take on a sweet young thing.

But Wong is a smoothie and his tongue-in-cheek reply was: “No problem, I’m also quite handsome.”

Elections have often been about the economy, the economy and the economy. But in Sarawak, it seems to be about Taib, Taib and Taib.

Even the ceramah site was just a stone’s throw from the Titanium commercial complex which belongs to one of Taib’s sons. It is not fully operational but it has become a symbol of the way Kuching folk feel about the business interests of Taib’s family.

Every other person seems knowledgeable about how Titanium secured a multi-million ringgit contract to replace some 300 bridges in the state.

For instance, the crowd loved it when Lim gave the Wonder Girls song his own twist, singing, “nobody, nobody but you … no money, no money for you.”

Posters with catchy phrases like “Bai Mao bu tao, ren min chi cao” (if Taib won’t go, the people will eat grass) have gone up in town.

The DAP is tapping big time into the Chinese discontent.

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Why is The Star pandering on the Chinese minority’s agenda playing their card as of they are the majority?

The Star being an unofficial arm of the Chinese political voice which is propegated by MCA should be playing to Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Mohd. Najib Tun Razak’s ’1 Malaysia’ agenda of unity, coming as one and harnessing the best from each societies and communities, instead of allowing the Chinese Chauvinism flavoured reporting in favour of the DAP.

The DAP in their borderline anti-Malay agenda has shown to be counter productive to the bigger agenda of moving Malaysia forward.

BN Sarawak 2011's Manifesto launched in Sibu

The Star instead should do a full blown analysis on Sarawak 2011 BN’s Manifesto, which focused on developmental economics and giving a special attention on SCORE as a tool of making Sarawak a high income state and Sarawakians high income earners across the board by 2030, if not a major contributor to the Federal Government New Economic Model and Economic Transformation Plan fully realised and succesful.

Group Editor in Chief Dato’ Sri Wong Chun Wai must be responsible for this. Unless, MCA President Dato’ Sri Dr Chua Soi Lek is ‘condoning’ if not deliberately ‘allowing’ the ‘systematic backstabbing’ of Barisan Nasional, reflected here in Sarawak.  

Suspiciously, The Star is simply realising fully their commercialisation of media with this sordid agenda to pander for the Chinese readership. after all, the ADEX cartel is very a Chinese cartel game and The Star already immensely benefited from this prime position in print advertising market.

As the cliche’ goes, “Cash is King”. BN Leadership should really watch these spaces very carefully.