Year in review 2016 - BN scores convincing polls wins

It was a good year at the polls for the Barisan Nasional (BN) as it won the Sarawak state election with a thumping majority and retained two parliamentary seats in by-elections in the peninsula with convincing majorities.
The big BN win was attributed to Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem’s move to woo back Chinese voters by pledging that he would not abandon the community, and that his policies that benefited the ethnic group would remain unchanged.
Adenan’s move to accept United Examination Certificate (UEC) graduates into the Sarawak civil service and public universities also went down well with the community.
He also made English the state official language alongside Bahasa Malaysia, which also won him kudos from the public.
The Sarawak BN parties won 72 of the 81 seats contested. In the 2011 state polls, BN won only 55 out of 71 seats. The opposition pact, the Pakatan Harapan, also shot itself in the foot during the state election by fighting among themselves for seats.
PKR and DAP faced each other in multi-cornered fights in six seats, namely, Mambong, Simanggang, Ngemah, Murum, Mulu and Batu Kitang.
PAS clashed with its former Pakatan Rakyat allies PKR and DAP as well as offshoot Parti Amanah Negara in 11 seats. This resulted in the opposition suffering defeat.
The success for BN in Sarawak came with a tragedy that triggered two by-elections in the peninsula.
Two of its members of Parliament – Kuala Kangsar and Sungai Besar – were killed when the helicopter they were travelling in crashed during the campaign period.
Deputy Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Noriah Kasnon, her husband Asmuni Abdullah, Kuala Kangsar MP Datuk Wan Mohammad Khair-il Anuar Wan Ahmad, ministry secretary-general Datuk Dr Surandran Annamalai, Noriah’s bodyguard Ahmad Sobri Harun and pilot Capt Rudolf Rex Ragas perished in the crash.
BN continued its Sarawak winning form in both by-elections and retained the seats comfortably.
The ruling federal coalition scored a landslide victory in both by-elections with Datin Mastura Mohd Yazid, the wife of Wan Mohammad, obtaining a 6,969-vote majority compared with her late husband’s 1,082-vote majority.
Mastura polled 12,653 votes in the four-cornered fight defeating PAS candidate Dr Najihatussalehah Ahmad, who managed 5,684 votes, Amanah’s Prof Dr Ahmad Termizi Ramli (4,883 votes) and independent candidate Izat Bukhary Ismail Bukhary (54 votes).
Budiman Mohd Zohdi, who is also Sungai Panjang state assemblyman, won in Sungai Besar with a majority of 9,191 votes, a big improvement from the slim 399-vote majority obtained by Noriah in the 2013 general election.
He received 16,800 votes in the three-cornered contest against Sungai Besar Amanah chairman Azhar Abdul Shukur (7,609 votes) and Dr Abdul Rani Osman from PAS, who is also Meru assemblyman (6,902 votes).
As the curtain goes down on 2016, it appears that BN could be heading for a win in the next general election.