Batang Ai a test of Anwar’s acceptance in Sarawak

By Baradan Kuppusamy, The Malaysian Insider

The April 7 by-election in Batang Ai, Sarawak, is set to be a watershed event in the politics of the state.

One reason is that for the first time Sarawakians, especially the majority Dayak communities who are fractured politically, are all excited about a peninsular-based coalition like the Pakatan Rakyat fighting in their heartland and offering them equal membership in the Malaysian family that they had not known before.

The PKR, unlike the DAP whch is confined to the urban centres and among the Chinese community, is advancing into the Dayak heartland bringing its message of change.

The excitement on the ground is very real and not just going by the huge crowds that de facto PKR leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is drawing on his regular visits to Sarawak.

Anwar has also promised a bigger oil royalty and to rewrite the rules of the political game in Sarawak where the minority Melanaus are in control, if PR wins the state elections due by 2011.

He has also promised to put a Dayak as chief minister, realising a long cherished Dayak dream.

In just a short time Anwar has become a unifying symbol and a rallying point for Dayaks, something they have not had since the days of Datuk Stephen Kalong Ningkan, an Iban of mixed Iban-Chinese parentage.

Ningkan rode on a wave of Dayak nationalism to become Sarawak’s first chief minister (1963 – 66) but was later deposed by Kuala Lumpur which preferred someone more amenable like Penghulu Tawi Sli who was chief minister from 1966 to 1970.

The overthrow of Ningkan started the twin domination of Sarawak politics — by Kuala Lumpur and by Melanaus — that is still deeply resented by other Sarawakians, especially Dayaks.

It is this longstanding twin domination that Anwar has promised to defeat and put in place a fair and equal relationship that has got the Dayaks excited.

Ningkan, who was president of SNAP (Sarawak National Party), faded from the scene after he was deposed.

Subsequently the mantle of Dayak nationalism and leadership moved to a SNAP splinter, the Parti Bangsa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS), which had mixed results under its president Tan Sri Leo Moggie.

Moggie's appointment as a senior federal minister between 1976 and 2004 took the sting out of PBDS claims to represent Dayak nationalism and their independence from Kuala Lumpur.

For a while his successor Datuk Daniel Tajem sought to play the Ningkan role but PBDS subsequently splintered further.

He left the political arena to become ambassador to New Zealand in 2000 and was thereafter politically sidelined.

A plethora of Dayak leaders in the political parties in Sarawak BN are trying to fill the political vacuum.

They claim to speak for the Dayaks but their standing is severely eroded because of their near total subservience to Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Taib Mahmud.

It is in this context of long-standing Dayak grievances of poverty, socio-economic and political marginalisation and loss of their land and traditional culture that Anwar enters the stage.

He is offering them equality, a promising future and a central political role befitting their status as a majority community, one that they had long dreamt but never achieved.

This is why Dayaks are willng to accept Anwar as their own in the same way they had taken to Ningkang and are rallying to his banner in huge, unprecedented numbers.

The Batang Ai by-election is where that Dayak acceptance or rejection of Anwar will be tested and that is why this by-election is unique and a watershed event in Sarawak politics.

Dayaks, long fractured and used to switching loyalties, have found a new leader to rally around.

Reacting to this phenomenon, Sarawak BN leaders are already attacking Anwar as a “Orang Malaya” who should not be allowed to gain a foothold in Sarawak.

They say Anwar is to be blamed for the “political chaos” in Peninsular Malaysia today and should be rejected by Batang Ai voters because if he is accepted Sarawak would end up in similar chaos.

The 8,000-strong constituency located four hours by road from Kuching, near the Kalimantan border, is 95 per cent Iban, giving this indigenous community a unique chance to herald a new political construct not available to Sarawakians before — equal partnership in the Malaysian family.

A defeat for BN, notwithstanding its advantages of incumbency, unassailable machinery and a deep war chest, would give notice that a March 8-type tsunami is gathering momentum ahead of state elections.

If PR wins then the alliance can claim a foothold in East Malaysia.

But nevertheless PR faces an acid test — the constituency is remote and people live at great distances from each other in longhouses and communication is poor.

The PKR’s Internet-savvy campaign methods have little relevance in such a remote and sparsely populated region.

The State BN, which can command any number of boats, helicopters and 4-wheel-drive vehicles, has the advantage.

Nevertheless past election results in Batang Ai show that despite the advantage the BN has won by unconvincing majorities, indicating that no matter what the State BN says and what resources it fields, there is a strong band of hardcore opposition supporters in the constituency.

While Pakatan faces an acid test, it is not a walk in the park for the BN either.