As expected, campaigning for the Batang Ai by-election intensified today with the Barisan Nasional displaying mobility and might with helicopters and a heightened ministerial presence.

The BN presence was sizeable on nomination day last Sunday with a full complement of state and federal ministers, as well as the leadership corps from component parties of the ruling state coalition, backed by a few thousand ordinary troopers carrying flags and wearing BN T-shirts.

Then as quickly as the BN army wafted in, they disappeared, only to return in adequately effective numbers for the final push as polling nears.

With four days to go for polling in the Batang Ai campaign, the marks of the traditional BN campaign style were evident: the alternation of a solid show of numerical strength for nominations with a thinned-out presence in the intervening weekdays, followed by a spike in campaign intensity in the last few days for a storming finish.

The thinking behind the strategy is reputedly time-tested.

The crowds that campaigners draw in the early days count for little if you don’t have a powerful finish which sees seasoned and wily campaigners airdropped or 4-wheel driven to longhouses for the final reinforcement or conversion of the tuai rumah (village heads) and their wards. This is a BN forte.

Three choppers seen in Lubok Antu

The presence this morning of three helicopters on the field of the sports complex in Lubok Antu, scene of last Sunday’s nominations day show of strength, spoke of a high-powered ministerial presence.

james masing True enough James Masing ( right ), the state land development minister and leader of Parti Rakyat Sarawak whose pick, Malcolm Mussen Lamoh, is the BN candidate, was seen in earnest discussion with a coterie of aides in the corridor of a shop row in the main square of this border town.

After what must have been a one hour’s conclave, the aides, several of who sported flak jackets that suggested readiness for travel by speedboat or helicopter, fanned out to SUVs parked nearby.

“It’s the final push for the vote in the longhouses,” remarked Albert Mintol, a former military intelligence commando, flicking a glance at the retreating shadow of Masing’s cohort.

batang air state seat 240209 “We have our men already there in the longhouses,” said Mintol, who owned up to no party though from what he said, was clearly a PKR sympathiser.

“They go in now,” said Mintol, referring to Masing’s troops, “and when they leave, our men there will call our mobile squad who will come in and talk to the longhouse people once again.”

Obviously, it’s a game of reinforcement of loyalists, conversion of the wavering, and reconversion of apostates.

The winners are obviously going to the people with the stamina and resources to hold the faithful, convert the wavering, and turn around repudiators until polls open at 8am on Tuesday.