DAP Dayak leaders continue attack on PKR ahead of Sarawak polls

DAP's Dayak leaders have ramped up their attacks on PKR, just three days before the two largest opposition parties in Sarawak meet to settle their squabble over seats for the coming state elections. DAP Sarawak vice chairman Leon Donald, the party's pick for the Dayak-majority seat of Simanggang, today hit out at PKR over their stance on Dayak seats, saying it was "just malicious". The Simanggang seat, with just over 11,300 voters, was one of the disputed seats in which PKR had officially named a woman candidate, Norina Umoi Utot, to contest. Leon contested the seat in the 2011 election but lost to Barisan Nasional's Datuk Francis Harden Hollis. Harden, the assistant minister of rural development and assistant minister of housing from the Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP), polled 4,758 votes to Leon's 2,311, winning by 2,447 votes. Leon said as the election neared the anticipated date, "the friction on the ground among the supporters of DAP and PKR is getting hotter". "I find PKR's effort laughable and ridiculous as they only appear during elections and disappear immediately after the elections are done. "How can we hope for PKR to help the rakyat in Sri Aman when they cannot even maintain their own office and members? "PKR is so greedy in wanting seats which have been serviced and taken care by hardworking DAP members. "Now, nearly all rural Dayak seats are demanded by PKR which I find absurd and unfair." Leon derided Umoi, saying she was "an outsider from Betong who does not know anybody, parachuted by PKR to challenge us in Simanggang". Betong, a small market town, is about 76km or an hour's drive from the principle administrative town of Bandar Sri Aman. "According to her Facebook posting, even now she is still working and has gone back to the Middle East. "We cannot have part-time politicians who pop up during eve of elections, then disappear after that. "Unfortunately, this is PKR's culture," Leon's deputy campaign director, Jayes Agas, said. "They disappear, only to reappear during elections and yet they complain and demand more seats only to lose again and again," he said, referring to PKR's election performance in the 2011 election where they won only three seats from 49 contested. PKR in March last year had told DAP that the 49 seats they were allocated in the 2011 election "are not up for grabs" and that they would contest in the same seats in the upcoming Sarawak state election. PKR said only the 11 new seats were negotiable. DAP was allocated 15 seats in the election, mostly in Chinese-majority constituencies, but their Impian Sarawak drive to the rural areas meant they needed Dayak seats which set them on a collision course with PKR. – February 16, 2016.]]>