KUCHING: A PBB Supreme Council member Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah believes the state Barisan Nasional (BN) can wrest Dudong, Meradong, Ba Kelalan and Krian from the opposition in the next state election while maintaining the two-thirds majority track record.
He said some of the presently opposition-held urban seats such as Dudong and Meradong that BN failed to defend in the last election was due to in-fighting in the party.
“Do not be surprised that we may be able to capture all these seats. I think DAP knows about that also,” he said when met at his Hari Raya Aidilfitri open house in Jalan Astana yesterday.
Karim, who is Assistant Minister for Youth Development (Urban Areas) and Assistant Minister of Housing, said the state BN would still win the election with two-thirds majority – with or without the 11 new seats.
“Whether the 11 new seats are going to come into play or not does not really affect us. Personally, I see that the 11 new seats will give more leeway to the chief minister to patch up the component parties and the splinter group.
“If the 11 new seats come into play, of course the chief minister will have more space to arrange. But without those 11 new seats, we will have a landslide win also. With the new seats, we may probably lose one or two of them. It is not going to be 100 per cent ours.”
He said the verdict on the appeal of the 11 new seats could be expected on July 20, adding “if we win the appeal, the 11 new seats will be there. If we lose, we may have to stay put with the 71 seats.”
Karim predicted that the next election would be called either end of this year or early this year.
He said it was not likely for the chief minister to see an automatic dissolution of the State Legislative Assembly on June 20, 2016.
“Under the Election Act, if the State Assembly is not dissolved on June 20 next year, it will dissolve automatically and the Election Commission (EC) will have to hold an election within 60 days.
“But I do not think the chief minister will let it dissolve automatically. It is not good. No leader wants that to happen that way. Having the dissolution right at the end is also not good because if something happens, you do not have a way to manoeuvre your strategy.”
As such, he believed the DUN would be dissolved within six months before the due date.
Karim said the state BN was very confident of winning the state election despite the national scandals such as 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST).
He noted that while some people were unhappy with GST, there were also quarters who could not be bothered with it.
“Prices of pepper are going up and the people are very happy. You can see in our community that there are people who are not even bothered about GST because they say what they are getting from their farms is far better.
“When I went back to my constituency and asked them, they said they received RM5,000 or RM6,000 a month from selling two or three tonnes of crops such as corns. To them, GST is not a problem at all.”