Sarawak Malays, especially in urban areas, will vote for the opposition because the community has been sidelined both economically and politically, claimed Parti Keadilan Sarawak secretary-general Wan Zainal Wan Sanusi today.

Speaking at a press conference at the party's headquarters in Kuching this afternoon, Wan Zainal said the tide is already turning against the Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud administration because, for one, the Malays here think they are not being given a fair share of the economic cake.

One of the early signs, according to him, is the result of the last parliamentary elections in 1999 when a number of Keadilan candidates almost defeated candidates of Parti Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu, a component of ruling Barisan Nasional, in its traditional Malay strongholds in and around Kuching.

"The Malays are longing for a change," said Wan Zainal, who is considered one of the party's heavyweights to anchor the party's line-up in the Sept 27 state elections. Nomination day is Sept 18.

According to Wan Zainal, the Malays are not afraid of change, even if this means it is at the expense of a number of the PBB Malay leaders in Kuching like Abang Johari Abang Openg, Daud Abdul Rahman, Dr Abang Draup and Sharifah Mordiah Fauzi being defeated.

"They will be replaced by new ones," said Sarawak Keadilan liaison chief Hafsah Harun who herself is expected to contest in either Pantai Damai or Semeriang, both Malay-predominant constituencies in Kuching.

In jest, she said perhaps the caretaker chief minister and PBB leader Taib would not mind if these PBB Malay leaders were to lose. "After all, he has brought Dr Sulaiman Daud and Datuk Abang Abu Bakar Abang Mustapha down. Maybe Abang Johari will be next. Probably that is what he wants to see happen."

'We want to win all'

Hafsah, once PBB women's head and a state minister under both chief ministers Tun Abdul Rahman Yakub and Taib until the controversial Ming Court Affair in 1987, indicated to malaysiakini that the party's final line-up would be endorsed by the party's presidential council before nomination day.

According to her, the party will field about 30 candidates, and sees itself doing well particularly in urban areas and "peculiar rural areas".

"We want to win all seats," she said when asked to predict the party's rate of success.

The party's election national coordinator Mohd Azmin Ali later in the afternoon told malaysiakini that Keadilan will be fielding 25 candidates.

Hafsah said there will a number of heavyweights and indicated that one is former education minister and former PBB vice-president Bujang Ulis who is said to stand a good chance in his old constituency Simunjan, where about 60 percent of the voters are Malays and about 35 percent Ibans.

Bujang has strong grassroots support and could give the BN incumbent Noroden Majais a good fight.

Another heavyweight is the party's legal adviser Dominique Ng Kim Ho who is expected to be fielded in Padungan, where the DAP has refused to give way and will field Chong Chieng Jen, also a lawyer, in what is expected to be a three-cornered fight involving a BN component party, SUPP.

SUPP will be represented by Lily Yong who heads the women's wing and is a political secretary to the chief minister.

NCR land issue

When asked whether she would be joining the fray, Hafsah told malaysiakini to wait until nomination day. Hafsah was at one time the assembly representative for Semeriang, and if she also joins the contest it is expected that she will take on PBB women's head and assistant minister Sharifah Mordiah in either Pantai Damai or Semeriang.

Another Sarawak Keadilan leader Dr Akaw Nonkep said apart from native customary rights land he sees other issues in Dayak areas as the lack of promotion within the civil service and the lack of opportunities in the exploitation from the development of the state's natural and mineral resources, in Petronas and the Bakun Hydro-Electric Project.

He said as far as the Sarawak indigenous peoples are concerned they are not just interested in retaining NCR land but also in the land that they are cut off from. But he claimed that whenever they ask for NCR land to be surveyed they are often told that, according to erstwhile colonial administrations, it would take 700 years to have all NCR lands surveyed.

And yet, Akaw added, when elections are around the corner, titles are being issued.

Also present at the press conference was party Youth leader Zulrusdi Mohd Hol.

Keadilan president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail will visit Sarawak on Sept 6 to meet the party members and candidates and open a series of the party's branches and election operation centres in Kuching and Lundu.