Baru Bian gets down to business...

Newly-elected state assemblyperson for Ba'Kelalan and Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian said his party should waste no time getting down to preparations for parliamentary elections expected soon after the opposition Pakatan Rakyat had done reasonably well in Saturday's state polls.

"We should not rest on our laurels but get down quickly to preparing for the general election," said Baru when speaking to Malaysiakini late yesterday after taking a short rest from the exertions of a tough but successful campaign for the Ba'kelalan seat in northern Sarawak.

The 53-year-old lawyer would not hazard a guess as to when Prime Minister Najib Razak would call for nationwide polls though pundits predict that the reverses suffered by the ruling BN would defer the date rather than expedite it.

An emphatic performance by the BN in Sarawak would almost certainly have emboldened the PM to call for an early general election on the back of the ruling coalition's victories in by-elections on the peninsula in recent months. Though Sarawak BN retained its two-third majority in the state legislature, it sustained losses in 16 seats - 12 going to the DAP, three to PKR and one to an Independent.

The 15-seat haul by the Pakatan opposition plus one to an independent was the biggest loss suffered by the ruling coalition since the 1987 state polls. Though the federal and state wings of the BN are lauding their victory as an endorsement of their rule, the fact that the DAP and PKR, members of the opposition Pakatan coalition, have improved their tally of seats over the last polls in 2006, suggest that the endorsement was not unqualified.

"We have to see how we can turn the progress we made in the areas where we won into gains at parliamentary level," said Baru.

More inclination to vote opposition

Baru said for the upcoming general election, Pakatan should seek to leverage on an inclination by people in Sarawak to think that voting for the opposition at parliamentary level was a better bet than endorsing them at state level.

"In years past, when polls were staggered over two days in Borneo, voters in Sarawak and Sabah would watch the outcome of results on the first day on the Peninsular and if this showed that the opposition were being pushed back strongly, they tended to favour them on the second day of the staggered poll," recalled Baru.

He said that though was an insignificant feature, it pointed to a latent tendency in the electorate to think that a vote for the opposition at parliamentary level was a safer proposition than a vote for them at state level. He said that feature, together with faster travel and communication, were the reasons why staggered polling was abolished in Sarawak and Sabah a couple of decades ago.

"I'm not saying we should clutch at straws but that we should exploit every facet in the people's psyche to advance the cause of reformasi," he argued. "The difficulties of campaigning in Sarawak are formidable, what with the costs of travel and other expenses, so we have to struggle hard to change people's mindsets about the government they can get with intelligent use of their vote," he commented.

PKR right in standing firm on seat negotitations

Baru admitted that an early announcement of who the PKR slate of candidates is would be an advantage, now that the hurdle was crossed that the party was no longer unduly burdened by being tagged as Peninsular-based. He said the failure of Snap to make an impact in the state polls laid to rest the notion that PKR was disadvantaged in being tarred as "orang Malaya" ("outsiders from the Peninsular").

"PKR were viewed as being presumptuous when negotiating with Snap on seat-sharing before the election, but now that view is unsustainable," he observed.

"We are glad we have gotten over that hurdle but we are not interested in rubbing home the point. We have no time to argue with people who we regard as allies rather than as adversaries," he said.

"We must get down to parliamentary gains and soon too," he emphasised.- terence
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source:malaysiakini

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