Tuai Rumah: Julau not really a safe BN seat
PAKAN: The Julau parliamentary seat cannot be considered as a safe seat for the Barisan Nasional (BN) in the coming general election if the number of votes garnered by its candidates in the two state seats of Meluan and Pakan in the last state election is anything to go by.
Veteran Parti Rakyat Sarawak ( PRS) members are expressing their concern as their party would be entrusted to defend the seat for BN in the general election.
Former vice- chairman of PRS Pakan, Tuai Rumah Janin Ungking, said he was extremely worried of the drastic decline in the number of votes obtained by BN candidates in Meluan and Pakan, which almost cost BN the (Julau) seat.
In Pakan, incumbent Tan Sri William Mawan who stood as a direct BN candidate only managed to defend the seat with a slim majority of 426 votes after garnering 3,999 votes against 3,573 obtained by independent candidate Dr Jawie Jingot and 265 votes from Rinda Juliza Alexander of DAP.
In Meluan, first-timer Rolland Duat garnered 3,363 votes against 2,686 obtained by Elly Lawai ( Independent), 2,008 votes by Semana Sawang of PKR and 934 votes by Remiguis Noel @ Jerry Clement (Independent).
Rolland, who stood on BN-SPDP ticket only managed to scrape through with a slim majority of 677 votes.
Janin believed the unimpressive result was due to a mess in the BN election machinery which he attributed to the selfish actions of certain leaders in the BN fold.
As PRS leaders and members were partly to blame, he felt the party ought to take concrete courses of action to win back the support of other BN component parties.
One course of action, he suggested, was for the party to nominate a fresh candidate, one who was not involved in the messy state of affairs during the last state election.
“PRS needs the support of other component parties like SPDP, PBB, SUPP and even Teras to defend the Julau seat. Only candidates who can team up with the component parties can be considered as winnable,” he said.
Knowing there were a number of qualified local people from PRS to take up the task, Janin suggested that the aspirants start moving on the ground to familiarise themselves with the constituents.
It would be better if they moved together with the elected BN representatives now, he added.