Ling (right) presents a shopping voucher to a recipient. — Photo by Peter Boon
SIBU (June 12): It is still too early to tell if Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarawak would perform better in the 15th general election (GE15) than it did during the 2018 polls, says Sibu MP Oscar Ling.
The parliamentarian, who is DAP Sarawak election campaign director, points out the need to wait another couple of months in order to get a better picture regarding this matter.
“I think (we) need to wait for another few months because we have not really started our campaign and furthermore, (we have) yet to know when the election will be called,” he told reporters after distributing shopping vouchers to 100 families from his constituency listed under the E-Kasih welfare aid programme and also petrol vouchers to 200 taxi drivers, at Sibu Heritage Centre yesterday.
For the record, DAP Sarawak won six of the nine seats it contested in the 2018 parliamentary polls.
Adding on, Ling believed that there would be more urgent issues that needed to be addressed this time around, than there were during GE14 where the focus was on 1MDB and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
“Now, we are facing the issue of GST making a return, those involved in court cases wanting to make a comeback, inflation, whether the democracy system in Malaysia is moving forward or backward – these are all the issues that need to be addressed.”
On Undi18 (law allowing those aged 18 to 20 to vote) and those who never voted before, Ling said they would be ‘the kingmaker’, should they all decide to cast their ballots in GE15.
“Those under Undi18 and those who never voted before, they constitute around 5.8 million (out of the) total voters in the next GE, so we can say that they are the kingmaker if they would come out to vote.
“In this regard, we need to do something to encourage them to come out and cast their votes.”
On his recent appointment as DAP Sarawak’s election campaign director, Ling said the main purpose of setting up the election campaign team was to standardise the whole process in terms of the party’s strategy and machinery across Sarawak.
Meanwhile, the programme yesterday was organised and run by the Sibu Parliamentary Constituency Service Centre, where each family received RM300 shopping voucher, while each taxi driver was given RM50 fuel voucher.
There are four taxi associations here: Sibu Taxi Owners Association, Sibu Division Taxi Association, Persatuan Teksi Bumiputra Bersatu Sibu and Sibu Taxi Association.