Sarawak election: It's anyone's game in Batu Kitang

Out of the 80 seats contested in this Sarawak 11th State Election, no seat was given a bigger focus by the media other than the new seat of N13 Batu Kitang.

With a five-way battle royale, it is only natural that the seat was given these much attention.

Nevertheless, it is the nature of the fight on the cards that is more interesting than the number of candidates contesting.

Batu Kitang is one of the six seats where political allies within the Pakatan Harapan coalition overlapped.

While both PKR and DAP tend to dismiss the threat of each other and preferred to train their guns at Barisan Nasional (BN), the people, (yes, the voters) on the ground tend to think otherwise.

A majority of Batu Kitang's 17,494 electorate do not follow the political developments as closely as the media does.

They tend to have a more 'general view' of everything rather than scrutinising the candidates' ability as well as the party's manifesto.

That is why upon my visit to talk to the Batu Kitang electorate, I found some of them could not even remember the name of all candidates contesting at their place.

"Yes, I know there is a number of candidates contesting but I do not really know them.

"However, I will vote come May 7," said a lady by the name of Su, an administrative clerk.

"Any candidates caught your eye?" I then asked.

"Maybe the DAP one. I saw him frequently, not just during campaign, even before this," said Su.

Su's observations was shared by many within the electorate.

DAP's Abdul Aziz Isa seemed to be seen as the 'dark horse' in this race despite only throwing his hat in the ring on the Nomination Day itself.

Maybe it is his youth or maybe his charisma, or maybe, he actually did his groundwork thoroughly until a sizeable number of the electorate recognises his work.

Despite all that, there is reasonable support for Barisan Nasional's Lo Khere Chiang and PKR's Voon Shiak Ni.

In fact, there are some who preferred the two independent candidates, Othman Bojeng and Sulaiman Kadir due to their frustrations with all the parties contesting.

However, with six days of campaigning left, it is still too early to say who will win, don't you think?

---

*Hafiz is in Kuching Sarawak covering the 11th Sarawak State Election for Astro AWANI. Readers are welcome to share your opinion with him at hafiz_marzukhi@astro.com.my

**The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the view of Astro AWANI.