Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, a vice-president of coalition mainstay Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), said he was confident the coalition would get a two-third majority in the elections on Dec 18.
The question was only whether they could win more than the 72 seats in 2016 when they contested under the Barisan Nasional banner.
Despite brushing off PSB as serious rivals, Karim said there was no animosity.
“To us, especially to me, I’m still good friends with the main PSB leaders. We still text each other. Even this morning, I wished (PSB president) Datuk Seri Wong Soon Koh all the best.”
The opposition PSB was rebranded from the United People’s Party (UPP), which used to be an ally of Sarawak BN.
Karim, who seeks re-election as Asajaya assemblyman, said PBB had no quarrels with PSB and its leaders split from GPS over their issues with another coalition member, Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP).
“There isn’t really any issue between PBB and PSB but there is animosity with SUPP. The people can see that most places they (PSB) are focusing on are urban and Dayak areas.
“In Malay areas, not so much, though they have placed candidates. Even then, it was at the final stages (prior to nomination day), perhaps to show they are really a Sarawakian party.”
GPS unafraid of Undi18
Karim also dismissed talk that GPS was afraid of young voters when it had pushed for an end to the state of emergency in Sarawak and for the elections to go ahead.
The Undi18 law and automatic voter registration will not apply for the Sarawak elections although they have been gazetted. Instead, the electoral roll updated on Nov 2 will be used.
“The election should have been held last year or the year before. We are not rushing. In fact, we’ve already gone into ‘injury time’,” he said, adding the mandate of the last state assembly expired on June 6.
In other countries, he said, the opposition would make a fuss about the government ruling on “borrowed time”.
“In Sarawak, the opposition wants injury time to be extended. Do you want us to get our salaries without a mandate from the rakyat? That is why we want to have an election.”
Karim added that there was also a risk of new Covid-19 variants surfacing and further delaying elections if it was not held now.
“If a new variant suddenly appears, when are we going to have the elections?” he asked.