Sarawak GE 13 | Eyeing the Election Candy?

Proposed 1,480 metres span Batang Sadong Bridge at Kampung Buloh, Sarawak

I've been through the area before. Crossing the Batang Sadong to Kota Samarahan, another river to cross took half a day ...that's very unproductive to residents in both Samarahan and Asajaya for their livelihood. In the Asajaya area lie many kampungs, mostly of Malay farmers and fishermen who virtually (mostly unfairly voted and kept Taib and truant son Sulaiman in Parliament for decades.

People in Asajaya and Sadong actually used to have a language or dialect heritage. I hope they still do though it's probably gone, what with that silly botak Rais Yatem conditioning with RTM Radio and TV. I hear little of it now. It's got a heavy "twang" on the nasal/glottal and half nasal sounds as in the word "orang" the "ng" would twang! :) Some studies have been done on this. James Collins has traced localities and local Malay dialests[#].

Once chatted with a Chinese shopkeeper in his late 30's, apparently disenchanted, because he and family gave up farming ...orange orchards and pineapples. On being asked why, they couldn't face some diseases and pests or blight impropoperly or unprofessionaly un addressed.

Those pineapples from Asajaya, Nenas Sarikei, used to be the darling of farming there.

These are simple humble folks whose life used to be the land and the sea. Except for some, others have more or less abandoned traditional farming and gravitated to the bright lights of Kuching, where for the young there aren't bountiful jobs. For those who managed to get to University there are PTPTN loans for both parents and children to shoulder.

Once rode a bike from Serian through Simunjan and saw along the way some swathes of land prepared for oil palm plantations.

But with unethical land distribution, the land is no longer their life sustainer. Most might, though without adequate local studies, have been disenfranchised.

They could well build that bridge joining Asajaya and Kota Samarahan. With losses throught corrupt practices just about a lot of other things could be improved. If they won't build that bridge for Asajaya, people might gravitate to Serian where market for agricultural products for smallholders is restricted compared to Kuching.

Election candy Just another paper project ? There is of course an alternative consideration. This much talked about bridge may again not reach fruition. It may well turn out to be yet another of those projects where a tranche of public money gets handed out to well-connected persons and where promises are made just before elections, for the whole matter to suddenly fizzle out the moment the election is over!

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A point in case is those roads that were ‘about to be started’ just before the State election just last year. The moment the election was over the machinery disappeared, along with the money that the local BN YBs had promised their voters had been allocated to the projects.

And readers have just sent a reminder from Sibu, where we recently queried yet another of Najib’s phantom pre-election promises, the so-called University of Technology. We have shown that plans have progressed no further than a request being made and no money has been put aside.

Yet, it was nevertheless indicated last month that construction would begin at the start of June.

Of course, at that time politicians all believed that the election would be called in June. But, Najib has again lost his nerve and postponed the election.

The projected site for the Sibu Technology University Campus. Not a sign of activity there now the election has been again postponed!

So, no surprise that our Sibu observers have reported that, as we approach the end of June, not a spadeful of soil has been turned on the supposed site for the Sibu University Campus!

More at ...Sarawak Report.

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Related Info

• MORE at Sarawak Report ...Election Candy?
• James T Collins [#]
• Representation, Identity and Multiculturalism in Sarawak,

A day before the Ides of March 1987

3 Sarawak ladies rolled out of a carpet

Puan Rosmah kena makan? | Pix from Hornbill Unleashed

Puan Rosmah Mansor, PM Najib's wife has been championing brainy children and identifying with them for the last so many months since hubby became Malaysia's bossman. Most, if not all, of these brainy kids should find themselves somewhere in the system eventually without direct help, although life has many twists and turns. In our case, most things are screwed up, anyway. So how will anybody get anywhere with all those fools rushing in?

But what about those under the perpetual unkind grind of the system? Like those Penan school girls?

Three Sarawak women sort of, rolled themselves out of a carpet, at a Grand Dinner that Rosmah had recently graced in Kuching. Looks like her handlers have gotten too complacent and that Sarawak should be under her sweeping spell, too!

Hornbill Unleashed got a scoop of the episode.

Well, these 3 irrepressible Sarawak women got Rosmah's attention! Hopefully, Rosmah didn't get a stomache upset. Maybe she won't. Would it take more than that to shed off tons from her prosperity appearance? Penan children could survive years on a kilo off her!

Just wondering, if Rosmah is really brainy and got the better of the gracious BN Sarawak ladies! ;-)

Kuching City, Sarawak, has two territories - Kuching City North and Kuching City South, administered by two institutions, Dewan Bandaraya Kuching Utara (DBKU) and Majlis Perbandaran Kuching Selatan (MBKS). And of course, we have 2 mayors! Ain't two heads better than one?

The City's day population now is roughly some 600,000 - 750,000, more like less than 750,000. But already, cars are in heavy road jams. With petrol prices shooting the sky, there won't be much "roti" for the "jam"!

The North and the South are cut roughly half by the Sungai Sarawak into North Bank, Tebing Seberang (Utara), (Petra Jaya), and the South Bank, Kuching Central.

Why the North and South Banks don't quite tally in the popularly known areas as Petra Jaya and Kuching Central, is anybody's guess. That might explain why Borneo have lost a lot of "orang hutans" and who could have turned into urban Kuching cowboys. I have some guesses but perhaps it's because in Kuching Central there is a part of DBKU. That doesn't adequately explain why the North (Utara) is also in the South, which really is Kuching Central. No, I'm not "nyanyuk" yet! My best guess is (here's inspiration), there is Little Lebanon, located right smack in Kuching Central and which is supposed to be in Dewan Bandaraya Kuching Utara, which is in the North but located in the South Bank which is Kuching Central. No, the Hezbollah people are not here in Kuching but Kuching is a Boleh! Malaysian City - urbanity personified but an old town named after a "kucing" (cat) or the fruit, "mata kucing", 'the cat's eyes'!

Great! Either way, it's got something to do with cats. Cats stray but you won't. I promise you won't get lost in Kuching!

Our New Mayor

Image by imageshak.us

As interesting or as confusing as Kuching is as I've tried painting it for you, MBKS (South) just had it's new Mayor installed yesterday. He's James KS Chan. The Mayor "who had to be helped when walking around yesterday", comes on with experience promising many potential credits to Kuching North, I'm sure! He's an accountant by profession. As long as you know where the debits and the credits are, the "sheet" will balance and won't smell. Trust a book-keeper for that!

He's also not superstitious and avoids moving into the ex-Mayor's Office. We lost the previous Mayor in Office as he suffered from terminal cancer.

Some wild "cat" in Kuching groaned whether Kuching will be the City of Hamelyn where the Piper took the children away. That won't happen. The new Mayor ain't supertitious! And as the picture shows on the page, he's well endowed, heavily built - and appears so, particularly below the shoulders and above the hips.



Kuching City Map


Little Lebanon


Kuching Statues


Kuching Waterfront