DAP’s flash overshadows SUPP’s staid approach

But it is likely the strength of the anti-Taib sentiment that will tilt the votes as the candidates from both sides play out their endgame. As campaigning draws down to the final 24 hours in the Sarawak elections, political parties are scrambling to move their chess pieces to checkmate their rivals.

While the fight for the urban areas have never been this intense in Sarawak’s history, some parties are sticking to their tried-and-tested strategy while some are venturing into uncharted territory. The battle in the urban areas – Kuching, Miri and Sibu – is predominantly a SUPP vs DAP game. Though DAP has started out as the underdog, it is clear that the tables have turned.

On the first night of campaigning itself, thousands thronged to the DAP ceramah, either out of support or curiosity to catch a glimpse of top party leaders. In Kuching, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng attracted a crowd of 5,000, packed into the tiny square of an open-air hawker centre in the Premier 101 Commercial Centre.

SUPP was forced to play catch-up – the party’s candidates only began their circuit of public speeches a few days after that – while unable to draw big crowds, many preferred to conduct house-to-house campaigns or meet voters table-to-table in coffeeshops. In Miri however, SUPP was taken aback by the crowds that just kept on increasing at each DAP ceramah.

SUPP, led by party president Dr George Chan, could only watch with dismay as the crowd swelled to as many as 15,000 in his own backyard when DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang was in town on the fourth day. Four-digit figures became the norm for DAP ceramah in this second largest town in Sarawak. Despite the saying that Chan is synonymous with Miri, it appears that the parting of ways is nigh if ceramah figures are to believed.

Similarly in Sibu, when Guan Eng flew into the town where DAP is contesting in four seats, he drew enormous interest. Delivering rostrum pounding speeches when he was not breaking into song – notably ‘No money, no money for you’ to the popular Wondergirls tune ‘Nobody nobody but you’ – he certainly created a buzz. But there was also the fear of peaking too early, said DAP strategist Liew Chin Tong, the party headquarters’ pointman in Sibu, when met several days ago. “We are hoping that we can keep up with this momentum,” he told Malaysiakini right before the halfway point in the gruelling 10-day campaign.



SUPP’s low key approach

If DAP’s style is to go in with guns blazing and a rock concert-atmosphere in their functions, SUPP could not be more different. Facing an image problem where many of them are already in their twilight years – their candidates’ average age is 57 in contrast with DAP’s 39 – SUPP’s modus operandi is almost the same in all parts of the state that they are contesting in.

Starting off their campaign first with quiet and low-key door-to-door visits, much of their activities also hinged on big dinners with the various Chinese associations, or whatever associations they could find. However, they soon had to change tactics after repeatedly being hit by one blow after another, when DAP capitalised on the simmering anti-Abdul Taib Mahmud sentiment among the urban Chinese voters by linking the SUPP leadership with the unpopular chief minister.

Forced on the back foot, their response was to challenge DAP to contest against Taib in his home turf of Balingian if they really had a beef with him and wanted the CM, who has been in power for three decades, gone. They later rang out a message – that the Chinese representation in the state cabinet would be severely weakened and greatly diminished if the party candidates were to be voted out.

Taking out a half-page advertisement in two of the best-selling Chinese daily in See Hua Daily and Sin Chew Daily, the party warned the Chinese voters that they may lose the deputy chief minister’s post, as well as all of the ministers’ and deputy ministers’ positions. But they are not sitting idly by while the attendance in DAP ceramah grows from strength to strength. Like army ants, SUPP has deployed their members to go house-to-house though with very little publicity. It is understood that in these visits, the party members offered ‘sweeteners’ of sorts to persuade the voters to support them.


Diverting attention

SUPP has also taken to organising grand dinners, complete with lucky draws and performances by local artists, strategically very close to where DAP is supposed to have their ceramah, in hopes that the voters’ attention would be diverted. It appeared to work in the smaller towns when a SUPP dinner overshadowed a DAP ceramah in the village of Tanjung Kunyit near Sibu, leaving the opposition with only a crowd of 50 hardcore supporters listening to their speeches.

While DAP is making headway in the urban areas, the party has also stepped up its efforts to woo rural Chinese in the second half of the campaign. The rural Chinese, long known to be core SUPP supporters for decades, mostly eke out simple lives as farmers.

Though their houses can be considered elemental by modern standards, some lacking running water and electricity, for them it is a case of where the wrong has become the norm. This is where the DAP could be losing the battle as much of their efforts are focused on town centres.





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