Election fever in Malaysia's Sarawak State
2016.05.02
Kuching
Updated at 11:30 a.m. ET on 2016-05-03
Located on the northwest coast of Borneo island, the heavily forested Malaysian state of Sarawak faces elections this week that were called amid a huge financial scandal implicating Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Resource-rich Sarawak is a bastion of Najib’s ruling National Front coalition which is expected to coast to victory in the polls in which the state’s 1.3 million registered voters are expected to cast their ballots on May 7.
Although a top producer of oil and timber, Sarawak hosts some of Malaysia's poorest people, especially tribal communities in the rural areas separated from the rest of the state by rugged terrain and rivers.
Despite the 1MDB financial scandal centering around the state-owned investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad linking Najib, ruling coalition parties are widely expected to win most of the seats.
The Barisan Nasional coalition has controlled state politics for 53 years. It has promised grand infrastructure projects in Sarawak’s interior, such as a 1,089-km (676-mile) Pan Borneo Highway, slated to be finished by 2023 and which would serve as a transportation backbone connecting Sarawak to neighboring Sabah state.
Eighty seats in the assembly are up for grabs, with the National Front running unopposed in two additional seats.