Sea of blue as BN dominates Sibuti poster and flags war
BEKENU: BN has been fast off the blocks in the poster and flags war in Sibuti in the first psychological strike in this battle with opposition party PAS which put up only a symbolic sprinkling of flags and a few billboards.
It was business as usual for the ordinary villagers and longhouse residents but the poster war has begun in earnest in this mixed rural constituency of Iban, Kedayan, Chinese and others.
The Borneo Post took a drive from Miri to check out the atmosphere and found that wave after wave of blue BN flags have sprung up along the roadside, longhouses and villages from Bukit Peninjau to Niah and the coastal road.
Voters continue with their daily life as usual, with scores of single cab 4WD vehicles laden with oil palm fruit heading to the mills and collection centres, hawkers plying their trade in trading places and mostly BN flags flapping around them.
The posters, fish-tails and billboards of BN candidate and incumbent MP Ahmad Lai, BN top leader Datuk Seri Najib Razak and 1Malaysia posters were found all over the constituency.
A billboard of PAS candidate Roddy Tandang at the junction of Miri bypass and Miri-Bintulu road was a singular sign of the strategic battle engaged by the opposition election machinery rather than quantity.
There, BN blue flags lined up the section of Miri-Bintulu road after LAKU Water Treatment Plant while PAS has a few at the road junction with Kampung Tunku Abdul Rahman village.
It was BN’s show all the way up to the Beluru Road junction where a billboard showing the SCORE road project and BN posters were seen side by side as part of the Sibuti constituency lies in the Bakong region which included Bukit Peninjau.
Roddy is an Iban Muslim from Bukit Peninjau while one-term incumbent Ahmad Lai is seeking re- election.
The road from the trunk road to Bekenu town was a scene of blueflagged villages, and PAS put up only a handful of its green and white flags in Bekenu town which is draped from one end to another in a sea of BN flags.
It was a similar scenario on the way to Batu Niah town and this is where the real action would be seen in the upcoming election campaign to the finishing line on May 5.
A PAS billboard at the junction of Bekenu access road and the coastal road make an imposing strategic visual impact but it was BN flags all the way back to Miri, which one BN campaigner succinctly put to the Post, “Not much of a problem in this sector.”
The group of BN campaigners was met up at a restaurant in Bekenu town enroute to Batu Niah.
The main battle for the Iban vote would be fought in the NiahSibuti region, the key to victory of either BN or PAS.
The well-oiled BN machinery is evident in Sibuti parliamentary constituency.