Out of 71 seats up for grabs in Sarawak on Saturday, BN is expected to have 43 seats in the bag, while 28 seats are hotly contested with Pakatan Rakyat leading in 19 of the, and another nine seats said to be still too close to call.
This is based on inside information from Umno, the key party in the BN campaign machinery.
Pakatan needs at least 24 seats to deny BN from its much-coveted two-thirds majority in the state assembly.
Out of the 19 BN ‘black’ seats, 16 are contested by SUPP - five in Kuching, four in Sibu, three in Miri, two seats in Sarikei, and one each in Lubok Antu a nd Bintulu.
It is predicted that SUPP will lose all the 13 Chinese-majority seats it is contesting against DAP -
Padungan
,
Pending
,
Kota Sentosa
,
Batu Kawah
(all in Kuching),
Repok
,
Meradong
(both in Sarikei),
Bukit Assek
,
Dudong
,
Bawang Assan
,
Pelawan
(all in Sibu),
Kidurong
(Bintulu),
Piasau
and
Pujut
(both in Miri).
PKR is expected to pick up five seats. Among them are two Chinese-majority seats - Batu Lintang (Kuching) and Senadin (Miri).
The other three are Ba’Kelalan , an Orang Ulu-majority seat, while Lingga and Saribas are Malay/Melanau-majority seats.
In total, DAP is expected to win 13 seats, PKR five seats and PAS may make a major breakthrough by winning its first Sarawak seat - Malay/Melanau-majority Beting Maro .
It is not expected that SNAP will win any of the 27 seats that it is contesting.
SUPP faces wipe-out, may lose 18 out of 19 seats
With just one day to go before polling, there are nine ‘grey’ seats that aresaid to be still too close to call.
Iban-majority Simanggang and Bidayuh-majority Bengoh are both contested by SUPP, and they may go to DAP and PKR respectively.
If that is the case, SUPP may face a similar fate suffered by Gerakan in Penang.
It could lose 18 out of the 19 seats contested, leaving the party with one seat, the Bidayuh-majority Opar .
All party heavyweights, including SUPP boss George Chan (Piasau) and Sibu chief Wong Soon Koh (Bawang Assan), may be put out to pasture.
Meanwhile, PBB could well lose three Malay/Melanau-majority seats ( Tarat , Nangka and Bukit Kota ), while other BN components SPDP may lost three seats (Orang Ulu-majority Ba’Kelalan , Bidayuh-majority Tasik Biru and Iban/Orang Ulu-majority Batu Danau ) and PRS may lose one (Orang Ulu-majority Belaga ).
