By Lian Cheng
SARATOK, Dec 10: As the administrative and business centre for Krian constituency, Saratok town has been buzzing with activities due to the ongoing 12th Sarawak Election.
Coffeeshops were full and vehicles with licence plates from other districts were pulling into car parking spaces as soon as the previous occupant moved out. The town which is usually quiet after lunch time, remained relatively busy even in the afternoon.
The hot topic of discussion in local coffeeshops of course revolved around Saratok MP Datuk Ali Biju (who is also Energy and Natural Resources Deputy Minister) and his last minute withdrawal from the contest for Krian seat in the State election which polls on Dec 18.
Ali’s popularity in Krian constituency is unquestionable.
A check on the ground revealed genuine and sincere support for him and is a straightforward response which reciprocates Ali’s ever-ready willingness to provide assistance and address concerns whenever the electorate needed help. This was the most commonly shared testimony among Saratok residents.
The Ibans interviewed predicted that following Ali’s withdrawal, some support will return to Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) candidate Friday Belik while for some, who are truly faithful to Ali, they may continue to choose to entrust him with their only vote. There are also concerns that some voters, especially the elderly who may not have kept updated with the last political developments, will continue to vote for him.
Meanwhile, for some of Ali’s staunch Chinese supporters, since Ali is no longer in the race, they will just refrain from voting. To them, the Parti Sarawak Bersatu candidate Musa Dinggat and Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) candidate Danny Kuan have yet to make it into their consideration.
The Saratok population, according to local businessman Thian Chung Hua, 56, is made up of the Ibans (60 per cent), Malays (25 per cent) and Chinese (15 per cent).
Like many Chinese businessman in Saratok, Thian who speaks fluent Iban said there are many young Ibans and Malays who can speak Mandarin equally as well as their Chinese peers. And like many other Chinese primary schools in rural town, the student population of Ming Sing Primary School is now dominated by Iban and Malay students.
“Many young Ibans and Malays can speak Mandarin like any Chinese because they were educated in the Chinese primary school, Ming Sing Primary School. Now, in a class of 50, the Chinese students make up 15 to 20 of them. The rest are either Iban or Malay students.
“And in some classes, the Iban or the Malay students are doing so well that they may be the ones leading the class in terms of semester results,” said Thian.
Basically, the Chinese in Saratok town are happy with the existing infrastructure facilities such as road network, treated water and 24-hour electricity supply. If they could ask for anything now, it is for better telecommunication connectivity.
Throughout the whole town, it was observed that there are only two tower. At the town centre itself, there is sporadic Internet connectivity. But if one were to walk about 10 metres away from town centre, there is totally no Internet signal. We had to walk on the street with personal computers in our hands in search of a spot where we could get a signal in order to access the Internet through hotspot sharing.
Similarly, telecommunication signals have been problematic for the most part of the afternoon where there was totally no telecommunication connectivity for a few hours. To make calls, we had to walk back to the town centre to search for signals which allowed us to connect to the network to do so.
An Iban at the coffeeshop told us to be patient, explaining that it was just a “blackout” which would last only for a while and it did not happen that often. We admired his patience but we still could not bring ourselves to agree with him. — DayakDaily
