PAKATAN RAKYAT IN SARAWAK, Sarawakians’ Victory in sight ?
We can only hope for Sarawak PR to aim for a healthier relationship: one that is based on rights, and on just and equitable principles, unlike the BN’s begging and closed-door pleading, and wheeling-dealing, tradition.
By Apang
It is here with us again: the hype among ordinary Sarawakians about the impending state election. Yet it is clear the publicity only highlights Sarawakian voters’ feeling of helplessness, and their conviction that nothing fundamental will change, beneath the cosmetic surface of politics.
The rhetorical pledges, fake concern, and high-ranking “support” touted by the Barisan Nasional (BN) should be viewed in the light of the governing coalition’s abysmal track record in Sarawak.
BN’s record is especially foul when it comes to Native Customary Rights (NCR) lands and development. The BN uses its might, threats, bribes and the people’s own money to arrange for the select few to be elected to form the government.
This provides the BN the “legitimacy” to first deny the indigenous communities their NCR lands. Then the ministers and elected “people’s representatives” go about “representing” their own selves and their families, partnering up with corporate elites to rip their fortunes from the stolen lands.
But if this kind of empty rhetoric were to come from the opposition, it would kill off all the potential gains that West Malaysians had shown us since March 2008. Most of our West Malaysian sisters and brothers continue to put aside their petty little egos and publicity-grabbing rhetoric aside, to strengthen the Pakatan Rakyat. Can opposition parties in Sarawak do the same?
Borneo Post airs PR’s dirty laundry
In Sarawak, the DAP and PKR started arguing in public, according to the Borneo Post, the newspaper owned by the logging and plantation giant KTS. KTS is one of three powerful companies facing land disputes and Penan blockades in Middle Baram. KTS stands to lose a great deal if the DAP and PKR come to power and honour their promises to protect NCR land rights.
The Borneo Post first quoted the Sarawak DAP Chairman, Wong Ho Leng, ( photo Left )on the ongoing electoral seat negotiations among the three opposition parties in Sarawak – SNAP, DAP and PKR. The Malaysian Mirror website reported the immediate reply from a prominent land rights lawyer, and PKR political bureau member, Baru Bian. ( Photo Right )
Several more quotes followed, in a public squabble so loved by the local press, but not by ordinary Sarawakians – certainly not by those NCR landowners, whose struggle the opposition says it supports. In fact, the opposition has promised NCR landowners their land rights problems would be solved if they vote for the opposition. The opposition must be held to their promise.
At least it comes as some consolation to ordinary Sarawakians, who crave a change in government, to know that the opposition parties concerned have fallen silent over the last month, rightly working out their differences in private and towards a common platform to take on the giant BN.
Claiming State seats
At the heart of the public rutting of the political elites within opposition parties, seems to be seats. The excitement is about, more specifically, which party has claim over which seat. It appears that both sides are claiming certain seats because each party thinks, from its own bunker, that it has the best chance of winning the seat.
Now if we accept the logic that losers will never admit they are losers until they are beaten, then applying this logic to all opposition parties will mean none would ever admit to possible defeat before the election.
Of course we see so much of this in our lives: it is no different in other parties, including the BN – after all, how often we have heard lately of the “revival” of the SUPP, for instance?
DAP and PKR negotiate
Allow me to describe the two main political parties, in order to lay bare the long and winding road that lies ahead for Pakatan Rakyat in Sarawak – the DAP and the PKR.
Both the DAP and the PKR cannot wait to kick out the BN at the federal and state levels, all across Malaysia. Both work under severe constraints as opposition parties. In government in Kelantan, Selangor, Penang and Kedah, the Pakatan Rakyat fledgling alliance obeys principles of democracy, transparency and accountability. These principles make the PR governments less resourceful, so to speak, than the BN.
