As most must know by now, Sarawak goes to the Polls in eight days' time ... on 16th April. Election fever is definitely in the air. I'm asking for contributions of photos that reflect this Election season as well as any views from anyone reading this. Send in your inputs to jslyong@hotmail.com and I'll post them here.
I'm currently in KL for work, and saw these in the various papers yesterday.
The Star headlined the situation ...
The New Straits Times had a complete list of candidates ...
and where the constituencies they were standing for ...
and this one has some of the candidates' pictures too.
More to come ...
UPDATE #1
The first batch of photos have come in ...
Crowd listening to Lim Guan Eng (DAP Leader & CM for Penang) speaking
Dr Michael Teo (ex-St Joe, one of the swiimmer Teo brothers) speaking
Tau Fang Tui Tang
(I'm not sure what this is. Will the contributor please comment)
Thanks LS. Keep 'em coming.
UPDATE #2
GL drew my attention to The Star, where reporter Joceline Tan has written a pretty accurate analysis of the situation on the ground. The title is "massive crowds at DAP’s first night ceramah in Kuching, Sibu and Miri may be a signal of a Chinese tsunami for Sarawak" [not often you see this in the mainstream media]. Our overseas friends may be surprised by what the papers are now saying. Click for the full piece.
UPDATE #3
More photos ...
A BN team poster flanked by rocket buntings ...
Another Roundabout with BN
A fiery Gobind (DAP) challenges the police to arrest him at DAP ceramah on Friday night. He was speaking on the Bible issue, something they were asked not to.
UPDATE #4 (10.4.11)
UPDATE #5 (11.04.11)
LS sent in photos showcasing "a tale of two ceramahs" ...
Lim Kit Siang takes to the stage
UPDATE #6 (12.04.11)
Some more ...
UPDATE #7 (13.04.11)
Even more to come n final two nights before Polling Day !!!
Dominique Ng Kim Ho (5Sc1 SJS78),
Padungan incumbent now defending as independent
Padungan incumbent now defending as independent
... with interesting issues raised
Feelings can run high ...
Party buntings decorate the city streets ...
Banner for Datuk Lee Kim Shin (BN) in Miri
UPDATE #5 (11.04.11)
LS sent in photos showcasing "a tale of two ceramahs" ...
The first one shows thousands welcoming Lim Kit Siang
(near the Boulevard Commercial Centre)
(near the Boulevard Commercial Centre)
The second showing few at the BN ceramah
(barely 300m away from the venue shown in the previous photo)
(barely 300m away from the venue shown in the previous photo)
UPDATE #6 (12.04.11)
Some more ...
Tonight's DAP ceramah draws large crowds too. Anthony Loke speaking.
Another view of crowds near Boulevard Commercial Centre, Miri
UPDATE #7 (13.04.11)
Biggest ever ceramah crowd in Miri. It was a DAP event, under BN banners. The heat certainly on. And the best is yet to come. Even bigger crowds expected tomorrow and Friday, weather permitting of course. Whether it translates to votes on Saturday is yet to be seen but the enthusiastic response from the crowd indicates so.
A young supporter shouting herself hoarse
In front of Dr. Teo's Clinic again tonight
Even more to come n final two nights before Polling Day !!!
.
Let the battle begin !
ReplyDeleteNow you're talking, WJ. The visitor count will rise quickly this week. LOL
ReplyDeleteMany former Josephians standing for election?
ReplyDeleteMany ex-Joes contesting including BN candidate for Balingian.
ReplyDeleteDr Michael Teo is PKR's Miri chief, and he is up against Datuk Lee Kim Shin (BN)who has already served three terms. This is the second time the two men have met at the polls. In 2001, Dr Teo lost by 9,199 votes against Dr Lee's 13,104 votes.
ReplyDeleteYes LS, we need an upset in Balingian
ReplyDeleteAnon 6.03pm, hpw about Piasau, Bawang Assam, Baleh etc etc.
ReplyDeleteinitial estimate put 6000 at a DAP ceremah at Dr.Teo's clinic in Miri Friday nite. This was revised upwards to 10000 later
ReplyDeleteSarawak has the best democracy money can buy !
ReplyDeleteAn American diplomat was sitting next to a Chinese diplomat at a UN dinner, and trying to explain the principles of democracy to the Chinaman.
ReplyDelete"In the US, we have an once election every five years", the American proudly proclaimed.
The Chinaman looked at him sympathetically, and replied "So sad you. In China, we have election evely night".
Oh Yea! Good One! That is why Americans go bankrupt as their (re)production machinery has gone kaput!
ReplyDeleteInfront of Michael Teo's clinic is simply a 2 row car parking area aong the street. It is not big enough to hold even 6000 people.
ReplyDeleteAnon 8.20pm, reports just in that another 10000 crowd there again right now. are you in miri? then head there and check it out.
ReplyDeletein front of dr teo maternity clinic, the 2 rows of parking and road stretching about 200m - can easily hold in excess of 6000. just received a video from someone there. huge crowd.
ReplyDeletewhere can find party manifesto of DAP?
ReplyDeleteDominique Ho is your classmate, LS?
ReplyDeleteLeng Chai, 2 ex-Joes going for Padungan seat.
ReplyDeletecheck out where you are voting here guys :
ReplyDeletehttp://daftarj2.spr.gov.my/prayakecil.aspx
there could be some surprises.
I attended the SUPP ceramah at Central Park last night. Cheng Yi [St Teresa's 1976] was speaking when I arrived. She speaks good mandarin, so good that I couldn't understand half of what she said! :-)
ReplyDeleteThere were less than 200 people in and around the SUPP stage. There were many occupied tables at the food outlets in the vicinity so I strolled around to see if they were there to catch the ceramah. Most were just busy eating or watching the football on astro. That does not augur well so SUPP.
The thunderous cheers and clapping at DAP ceramahs were conspicuously absent from this SUPP ceramah.
If turn-out at ceramahs is an indication of voter support, then SUPP candidates have their work cut out to win.
Earlier at 8pm, I had tried to go to Batu Kawa to attend the PKR/DAP ceramah they called 'Super Sunday'. Anwar was speaking there. Unfortunately, the traffic was jammed all the way from Batu Kawa to the turn-off to Arang Road [Lorenzo]. My car crawled along for half an hour and I barely passed MJC. In the end, I gave up and turned back.
A friend of mine who managed to get there sms me to say the crowd there exceeded 9,000.
To all our overseas friends, you just have to be here to feel it. It's the most exciting election ever. Even the pro-government Star newspaper [owned by MCA] is predicting a Chinese tsunami in all the urban seats. Whether the passionate crowds at the opposition ceramahs actually translate into votes remain to be seen.
As the Star article pointed out, Taib Mahmud is the central issue in the opposition ceramahs. This can, in large part, be attributed to the website Sarawak Report - even the Star specifically alludes to the discomfort the Chief Minister is feeling over the allegations made in the website.
See:
http://thestar.com.my/columnists/story.asp?file=/2011/4/3/columnists/joceline/8406086&sec=joceline
The Sarawak Club is organising a special barbecue at the Badger Bar on 16 April where election results will be shown on its large screen tv. Club members [and their friends] can come and share the excitement over a few jugs of beer and some nice barbecue!
The Sarawak Report website has been brought down. IS it DDOS WJ?
ReplyDeletePlease don't confuse Sarawak Report and Sarawak Reports. An extra 'S' makes lots of difference.
DDOS or Distributed Denial of Service is a common technique used to bring a website to a crawl or even shutdown, by sending it millions of packets from different servers just to keep the server running at near full capacity. Others will not be able to gain access to the website or if they do, will give up because of the slowness.
ReplyDeleteNot much can be done except to change the IP address of the server, or to set up mirror sites at other IP addresses.
where's the DAP or PKR ceramah tonight?
ReplyDeleteCentral Park, Kuching. Both Anwar Ibrahim and See Chee How will be there. It is going to be packed to the rafters again. Since I live around there, I might just walk there, hahaha.
ReplyDeleteGeorgie-boy, can you take photos, and if possible even film some of it and upload to YouTube. Especially the fiery speeches and chants.
ReplyDeleteWah, got many updates already. What about some videos WJ?
ReplyDeleteAiya, saw the request too late. So I will do a brief write-up here of what I saw last night.
ReplyDeleteI picked up Bob from his office and we headed to the ceramah site which is just a few hundred metres away. It was 7.15pm and the place was already crowded. There are 5 coffee shops surrounding the area where the stage is located and most of the tables were already filled.
The feeling and atmosphere was completely different from the day before [Sunday] when SUPP held a ceramah at exactly the same spot. Last night, the excitement was palpable even before the first speech started and there were about a dozen uniformed police present.
Bob and I sat at a table far from the stage as all the nearer ones were taken already.
There were many speeches in Mandarin before the main event but Bob and I did not pay much attention to them. There was continuous cheering and clapping, again in marked contrast to the SUPP ceramah the night before.
At around 9pm, there was a loud cheer behind us. We swung around. Anwar Ibrahim had arrived. He walked right by our table, shaking hands with people along the way.
Anwar went straight to the podium and launched into his speech. He is a fiery orator, mixing a little bit of Mandarin with his BM speech, interspersed with English.
There were thousands of people there, standing shoulder to shoulder around the stage. A light drizzle started, some umbrellas came out but most of the crowd stood in the drizzle, heedless of the rain drops, mesmerized by Anwar.
The central themes of his speech were our Chief Minister, corruption and the need for Change. Even though most in the crowd had probably heard the same things repeated several times over the past few days, they cheered and clapped as if they were hearing it for the first time. The atmosphere was electrifying.
Anwar made it a point to urge everyone to vote for the DAP candidate in Padungan and to reject the independent candidate, Dominique Ng who was the former PKR YB for Padungan.
Voon Lee Shan, the former DAP YB for Batu Lintang also spoke last night. He was praised for acting in a gentlemanly manner even though he was dropped to make way for See Chee How from PKR in a swap of seats between DAP and PKR [Padungan for Batu Lintang which resulted in incumbents Dominique and Voon being dropped].
Anwar left immediately after his speech, probably hurrying off to another ceramah. As he walked quickly by our table, my little girl grabbed his arm and he stopped in surprise. She stuck out her hand and he shook it with a pleased smile and then he dashed off. It was all so unexpected that I didn't have time to grab my handphone to take a picture. That would have been a nice picture to keep. :-)
It is confirmed that Sarawak Report is under DDOS and is no longer accessible. A check with google shows that there is now an alternative site:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.facebook.com/sarawakreport
Georgie-boy, your little girl is already showing her inherent potential to be in politics :)
ReplyDeleteFor those who've been asking for videos from the ceramahs, check these out first ...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGpbiYLRE5Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQkr87I0BSk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iucatW7GcbA
It's Part 1,2 and 3 of Anwar's speech in Miri on the evening of 8.4.11.
What contrast it was at Boulevard Miri last Miri for the 2 ceramahs within 300 metres of each other.
ReplyDeleteTHe BN's was at a choice location, well lighted, a number of coffee shops with open-air seating.
DAP's was at an obscure corner.
BN's only had a handful of people at their area and most were diners who happen to choose the place to fill their tummy.
In stark contrast, there were thousands mainly standing hearing out the DAP speakers, cheering them and chanting after them.
Meanwhile, the PM has cancelled Wednesday cabinet meeting with almost the entire cabinet in Sarawak.
Certainly this is an election with high stakes.
Also the videoclips of Lim Guan Eng in Miri ...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsexOZJhRyI
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD4BgTb5A8U
NGAP SAYOT SARAWAK !!!!
ReplyDeleteCan't wait for more ceramahs! This is the most exciting m0nth in Sarawak for some time.
ReplyDeleteWhy Dominique Ng on independent ticket? Bukan PKR kah?
ReplyDeletePKR and DAP swapped seats [Padungan for Batu Lintang]. Now Padungan is a DAP seat and DAP candidate Wong King Wei is standing. Dominique is upset that he is dropped as candidate so he decided to stand as an independent in Padungan. This made BN very happy as it hopes that he will split the opposition votes and hand the seat to BN candidate Sim Kian Chiok.
ReplyDeletePadungan will be an interesting one to watch.
ReplyDeleteHeard that Najib and most of Cabinet ministers are in Kuching. See them yet?
ReplyDeleteBN must be panicking over its "Fixed Deposit" state
ReplyDeleteYa loh, all the big shots from KL are here in Kuching to 'talk, talk, talk'
ReplyDeleteMet Najib and his deputy too but no chance to shake their hands, too many people around them.
The mother of all electoral battles is on!
ReplyDeleteDAP, PKR ... go ... go... go !!!
ReplyDeletePR manifesto here : http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=10268:pakatan-unveils-swak-manifesto-to-restore-the-states-wealth-to-the-people&Itemid=2
ReplyDeleteread about that miri ceramah on 13th apr 2011 here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=10336:record-10000-crowd-fills-the-streets-of-miri-for-anwar-pakatan-rally&Itemid=2
If this State Election had a theme song, what would it be? LOL
ReplyDeleteWhy can't they extend Postal Voting to outside of Sarawak? Malaysia?
ReplyDeleteWhat numbers of seats do the BN and Opposition parties curretnly hold?
ReplyDeleteSINGAPORE just announced GE on 7 May 2011 !!!
ReplyDelete