Sarawak polls: Crowd thins when Guan Eng slams Adenan

(The Star) – The crowd at a DAP ceramah here started to thin Saturday night shortly after Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng began criticising his Sarawak counterpart Tan Sri Adenan Satem.

About 200 of the 1,000-strong crowd at the open-air ceramah began to leave when Lim slammed Adenan for limiting his stay in Sarawak.

The number of people leaving was noticeable because they had to move their cars parked along the service road adjacent to the busy Jalan Tun Jugah in Kuching city.

Lim told the crowd that he is a Chief Minister and Adenan should not restrict his stay in Sarawak and accused him of abusing the state’s autonomy powers.

Lim implied that Adenan was being hypocritical by asking him to write in and appeal for an extension.

He has to leave the state by May 5, two days before Sarawakians go to the polls.

The DAP secretary-general, who was scheduled to speak at 10pm, arrived after 11pm.

He claimed he was delayed at the state immigration for 20 minutes because the officers could not locate the stamp.

However, a Chinese vernacular reporter said some of the crowd were probably tired because they had been waiting since 8pm to hear Lim speak.

“Some of them are afraid to get stuck in the traffic jam when the ceramah finishes. I also left before he finished speaking because he was not saying anything new, just the same old issues we have already seen on the Internet,” said the journalist.

Among the speakers featured on stage were Violet Yong, the candidate for Pending, Christina Chiew (Batu Kawah), Abdul Aziz Isa (Batu Kitang) and party veteran Chong Siew Chiang, the father of state DAP chairman Chong Chien Jen, who is defending the Kota Sentosa seat.