COMMENT The dust may be settling on the Sarawak state election, but one particular polling day incident has yet to reach the masses.

It was in the battle for the Marudi seat.

PKR’s newcomer Elia Bit was up against cash-flush BN’s Dr Penguang Manggil of SPDP and Independent Louis Jalong.

The young and inspiring Elia proved she was no pushover.

She captured the hearts of many voters in this mixed rural seat, that like many rural seats in Sarawak, has been a BN stronghold until the last general election in 2013.

Support for her vision of change won her 245 votes at the Long Teran polling centre, a village of the majority Berawan ethnic group in the Tinjar region of Baram.

Elia won convincingly with BN’s candidate trailing behind at 97 votes when polling stopped at noon.

However, inconsistency in applying the rules concerning the all-important Borang 14 (the form that details the vote counts for each polling centre or stream), was shown when the Ketua Tempat Mengundi (KTM) not only refused to hand over the pink-coloured copy of the form to the election agent of PKR, but he also refused to sign the form, and went ahead to seal the plastic envelope containing the form.

PKR’s supporters, who were rightly concerned that their hard-won support could be manipulated, tailed the Election Commission’s (EC) vehicle carrying the ballot box and the incomplete Borang 14 through a four hour long journey, through the untarred logging and plantation road to the N76 seat tally centre in Marudi.

The situation on the ground was relayed to party leaders and campaigners waiting in Marudi and as word spread, some 30 PKR supporters gathered at the Marudi ferry crossing from 2.30pm.

When the EC’s convoy arrived around 6pm at the ferry crossing, supporters demanded that the KTM sign the form, but to no avail.

More supporters gathered at the Dewan Suarah Marudi, the tally centre.

PKR’s Baram division secretary Denis Along and party supporters blocked the entrance and demanded that the EC rectify the problem immediately.

Tension was running high as suspicions of foul play grew while the police and the district officer tried to control the situation.

Acting as mediator, the district office then invited Elia and Penguang Manggil together with their election agents, to negotiate behind closed doors.

Forty-five minutes later, the ballot box and the sealed envelope were handed in and the result of Long Teran was announced to the satisfaction of PKR.

GREENPEA is a keen observer of Sarawak politics and campaigned for PKR in the Baram division during the 11th Sarawak election.

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