KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 — DAP pledged today to continue its Impian Sarawak programme into the Borneo state’s hinterland despite suffering heavy losses in the recently-concluded polls.

Its national publicity secretary Tony Pua said DAP’s “disappointing” failure should not be blamed on the party’s Impian Sarawak mechanism which has a long-term goal instead of expecting instant results in the polls.

“Yes, it is true that in some polling districts where we have carried out projects, the electoral impact has been tiny or even negligible. But what is also true is that in certain areas, we have received a small but significant increase in support.

“Nevertheless, any attempts to measure the impact of Impian projects via short-term changes in electoral support is not only premature, it is well off-the-mark,” he said in a statement.

“Any expectation of instant transformation in perception and trust among the rural villagers after decades of fear and prejudice conditioned into their minds is unrealistic.  

“If the political mindset change in West Malaysians took decades of sacrifice and effort by our pioneering opposition leaders, why should we expect the same change to take place overnight in rural Sarawak?” Pua asked.

The Petaling Jaya Utara MP explained that DAP’s long term commitment to Impian Sarawak and Sabah was to “bridge the rural-urban divide, to offer basic infrastructure, health and education projects as well as services to uplift the quality of lives of the marginalised poor as well as to improve the understanding between the Party and the villagers.”

In the two-and-a-half years since inception, both the Impian Sarawak and Sabah programmes have delivered over 60 projects, including gravity water feed projects, building accessible roads and generating cheap electricity which has improved the lives of East Malaysians, Pua stressed.

Barisan Nasional (BN) won handsomely in the state polls in Saturday, winning 72 out of 82 seats contested.  more seats even than the 71 that made up the Sarawak legislative assembly five years ago.

The BN’s Sarawak-based Chinese component SUPP won seven of the 13 seats it contested, an improvement from 2011 when it managed to just win six constituencies out of 19, losing many of its contested seats to the DAP.”

PKR won three out of the 40 seats it contested while DAP only secured seven from the 31 seats, five seats fewer than the 12 it won in 2011. Amanah failed to secure a single seat.