Big challenge to serve in sprawling seats

Penampang and Hulu Rajang MPs require careful logistics for their travels

WHEN Penampang MP Darell Leiking drives 16km via the Federal Highway from his Kelana Jaya home to Parliament, he passes at least six parliamentary seats.

The constituencies are Kelana Jaya, Petaling Jaya Utara, Petaling Jaya Selatan, Lembah Pantai, Seputeh and Segambut.

If Leiking were to travel the same distance from Lido, a town in his Penampang seat adjacent to Kota Kinabalu, to Tambunan, he would still be in his constituency.

If he travels 39km further on the road to the Keningau parliamentary seat, he would still be in Penampang. That is how big the Parti Warisan Sabah deputy president’s parliamentary seat is.

There are polling stations in his constituency which he has to walk or drive for several hours to reach.

For example, Togu do non thePe nam pangTambunan road is about as even-hour (depending on the YB’s stamina) uphill and downhill hike to Longkogunan village.

Donggongon town to Buayan village is an hour’s drive via four-wheel drive (4WD), depending on the road condition.

If Leiking had the financial resources, he could hire a helicopter for about RM8,000 to reach Longkogunan in 30 minutes.

The Penampang constituency is almost half the size of Perlis. It has 53,162 voters, who are mostly Kadazandusun and Chinese.

The voters are concentrated in housing areas in the Kapayan state seat and villages in the Moyog state seat. But there are scattered and isolated villages which have a few hundred voters in total, such as Longkogunan (134 voters) and Buayan (154).

“Despite the size of my constituency, it is my responsibility to execute my duties despite the challenges of being an Opposition MP,” says Leiking, who stood as a PKR candidate in GE13 and joined Warisan in October 2016.

Sabah and Sarawak are big places. In fact, Sarawak is only slightly smaller than the whole of Peninsular Malaysia. The two states in Borneo have parliamentary constituencies as large as Pahang and as small as Perlis.

The biggest parliamentary seat in Malaysia is Hulu Rajang in Sarawak, which has the same land area as Pahang. It has about 27,000 voters, who are mostly Iban and Orang Ulu.

It is noteworthy outside the state for the Bakun Hydroelectric Dam, a famous landmark in a constituency where rivers are the main mode of travel.

“We are as big as Pahang, which has a sultan, mentri besar, exco and state assembly,” says Hulu Rajang MP Datuk Wilson Ugak Kumbong.

To get from one end of the remote constituency to the other, Wilson has to travel via 4WD, boat, plane and helicopter.

For example, if he wants to go from Kapit, a town located along Sungai Rajang – the longest river in Malaysia – to Sungai Asap, an Orang Ulu resettlement longhouse, he would fly from Kuching to Sibu first.

From Sibu, he has to take a three-hour speedboat or express boat ride on Sungai Rajang to Kapit.

From Kapit, he goes by boat to Belaga for six hours. He then takes a 4WD for two hours via gravel road to Sungai Asap.

In comparison, it takes only 30 minutes to travel from one end of the Bandar Kuching urban constituency to the other.

However, for his large and remote rural constituency the size of a peninsula state, Wilson needs to plan his logistics well.

The Kapit-Sungai Asap journey would take him two weeks, as he needs to visit constituents and sleep over at longhouses along the way.

“Some parts of the journey are very dangerous. It is very risky when you shoot the Pelagus rapids or drive on a muddy timber track road along the river,” said the supreme council member of Parti Rakyat Sarawak, a Barisan Nasional component party.

“But for me, however risky it is, it does not stop me from serving the rakyat.”

Many people in Peninsular Malaysia, who live in accessible housing areas in urban constituencies, do not understand that there are voters in Sabah and Sarawak who live in isolated and remote areas. These places have hundreds of voters using a single address.

It is normal, according to Wilson, to have an entire community of people living in a longhouse using the same address.

“Take my longhouse, Rumah Melintang, in Sungai Gaat. It has no road connectivity. I need to travel at least four hours by boat from Kapit to my longhouse, ” he said.

“There is only one address for the 153 voters there and it is ‘Rumah Melintang Sungai Gaat’.”