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If you are looking for my full blog.. GO HERE.. coz this blog has been abandoned and is not really updated.

Sarawak currently has 31 parliamentary and 71 state seats. Its population is made up from 30% Iban, 26% Chinese, 22% Malays, 8% Bidayuhs, 5.5% Melanaus and 5.5% Orang Ulu consisting of Kayans, Lun Bawangs, Kelabits, Kenyahs, Penans, Sebobs plus a few more smaller tribes. (Non Malaysians make up the remainder 3%.)

CORRIDORS OF POWER by Hakim Joe

Sarawak is considered one of the poorest and least developed states in Malaysia despite its abundance of natural resources including timber (world's largest exporters of tropical hardwood timber), LNG (world’s second largest exporters of LNG together with Sabah) and petroleum.

The Alliance/BN has politically controlled the state since its inception in 1963. The first Chief Minister is of course the famous Datuk Amar Stephen Kalong Ningkan (from SNAP) until he was ousted in 1966 to be replaced by Datuk Penghulu Tawi Sli (former SNAP secretary) of Pesaka. Tun Abdul Rahman Ya'kub became the third CM in 1970 and governed Sarawak until he stepped down and was subsequently appointed as the Governor in 1981. The vacant CM seat then fell to the new president of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud (nephew of Tun Abdul Rahman Ya'kub). The rest is history.

The demographics of Sarawakians are something we should take note of. The majority of Ibans (Sea Dayaks) are Christians, so are the Bidayuhs (Land Dayaks), Kayans, Kelabits and Penans. The Melanaus are Muslims. So, in terms of segregating the religious faiths, it can be said that the majority of Sarawakians are non-Muslims and owing to its diversified mixture of different races and indigenous people, religious and racial tones are never employed during the political campaigning here.

Currently the four Sarawak political parties aligned to BN are Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP), Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) and Sarawak People's Party (PRS). The Sarawak National Party (SNAP) was expelled from BN in 2004.

The last time Sarawak held a state election was in 2006 where BN won 62 of the 71 contested seats. In 2001, BN won 60 of the 62 contested seats. The next state elections will be held before the 24th of April 2011. Let us analyse the results:

For BN, PBB won 35 seats, SUPP won 11 seats, SPDP won 8 seats and PRS also won 8 seats. For the opposition, PKR won 1 seat, SNAP won 1 seat, DAP won 6 seats and 1 seat went to an independent.

Of the 69 contested seats (2 were won uncontested by BN), 18 seats saw a winning majority increase for BN while 51 seats saw a swing to non-BN contestants. Meradong (N40) had the largest swing of 43.8% where DAP beat 4 other contestants while Satok (N8) recorded the lowest swing of a mere 0.5%. On the average, all the contested seats saw an average swing of 8.2% towards non-BN contestants.

Analysis shows that this event was precipitated by a swing of the Chinese votes from SUPP to other non-BN parties. Of the 9 seats that BN lost, 6 were SUPP incumbents. This election also witnessed BN fielding 15 Chinese contestants of which 6 lost. Of the remaining 9 seats which BN won, the declining majority exhibit a swing of 16.9% away from them. Overall, seats where BN nominated Chinese candidates showed a swing of 18.8% to the opposition.

What does this all mean? It means that even with an overall average swing of 8.2% to the opposition, BN still won 62 seats or 87.3% of the 71 seats. To have won the 9th state election on a simple majority, the opposition must have an average minimum swing of 12.9% (where 28 of the least majority BN won seats are instead won by the opposition by 1 or two votes) and the Chinese swing from 18.8% to 20.3%. Is this a lot? The required (minimum) 4.7% increase amounts to only 29,491 votes, or 12,746 BN voters changing allegiance.

Sarawak can be won over by the opposition and that is a fact as exhibited by the figures above. The 30% Iban voters holds the key to this goal. 10 seats which BN won were decided on a majority less than 1,000 votes (19 BN seats if less than 2,000 votes). 2011 is not that far a time in the future that Pakatan can dally until a later date before taking action to counter the BN monopoly.

At the very least, Pakatan can attempt to win enough seats (24 seats) to stop BN commanding a two-thirds majority in the Sarawak state assembly.

Looking for a good website to buy mobile phone and its applications? Well, look no more because MobileFun UK is offering just that. With MobileFun, everything is mobile, with the site itself offering a huge range of products such as iPhone accessories inclusive of the iphone dock which will come in handy shall you need a place where you want to put your new iPhone 3GS. Apart from that, enjoy also accessories for the Blackberry such as the blackberry case which is a requirement to keep your Blakbery spanking new. Don't be mistaken, the site also offers other range of accessories which are associated to mobile phones such as a bluetooth headset, handphone casing and many more.

Now, the website itself does come in handy when you are looking for all these mobile accessories with navigation clear and in contrasting in color on the left panel of the site. The stark difference in color makes it an interesting and hippy site, while the essence of a typical online store is clearly brushed aside. Promotions by MobileFun UK are easily spotted as a heading on the site, with a smaller orange banner saying that the site now accepts PayPal as payment.

The negative side of the site prevails if you are not living within the UK or Europe because the site fails to inform its possible customers in a obvious manner that they only ship to these regions. In addition to that, the fact that they do not seem like a typical online store makes users wary of the site's trustworthiness, despite having won numerous awards locally. Another downside of the site is the arrangement of the items sold which seem to be rather messy, but nevertheless, if you are looking for a good online store, this maybe a good site to check out.

Do you know how important is routers nowadays? Well, if you have no idea, it is just darn important. Maybe too important to even ignore nowadays. Anyway, I was online looking for a perfect router for my personal use, and I found so much options in Shopwiki which is an awesome place to actually look out for a wireless router.


In additional to that, I noticed that routers available are also good of quality, and that is important for good reception and internet surfing. When picking the best internet router, one must be very careful to get the most sensitive one because the more sensitive the router, the better reception you can obtain. In addition to that, it would also be sensible to choose a router which has longer range because this would benefit you to obtain wider wireless coverage.

Finally, always ensure on the warranty of the router, and wether it is covered for lightning strikes. Some good brands do offer warranty claims for such coverage, while others only give you a limited 3 months warranty. Either way, do look up Shopwiki which doies have a huge selection of wireless routers.

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