Malaysian Swan Song in Sarawak By-Election
The people of Sibu must have wondered if Christmas and Gawai, the harvest festival, had come early. The campaign circus has breathed a short-lived booming economy into the town, nestled on the banks of the river. Hotels and restaurants are fully booked. There is free karaoke and beer. Food has been ordered for the various meetings in the longhouses. Election bunting, banners and billboards are everywhere. Boats going up-river are filled to capacity. And best of all politicians are promising building projects, more development and they are signing checks, with the promise of more.
Written by Mariam Mokhtar, Asia Sentinel
The Sibu by-election in Sarawak on 16 May is a test on several fronts. A win for the Barisan Nasional, which appears likely, would put the Barisan within striking range of taking back its two-thirds majority in the national parliament.
Beyond that is the old rivalry between two sworn enemies – the Sarawak United Political Party for the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition and the Democratic Action Party for the opposition Pakatan Rakyat banner. As with all of the by-elections that have occurred since the national elections of March 2008, it is being hard fought, even harder perhaps.
As an indication of the importance the government places on the seat, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak recently made a second appearance in Sibu, a picturesque town of about 250,000 people on the upper reaches of the Rajang River, offering his hand of friendship to the Chinese community and proclaiming, “As prime minister, I want to deliver. You can trust me that this government will deliver to the people of Sibu.”
He might as well have said, “Trust me. I am a politician.”
The people of Sibu must have wondered if Christmas and Gawai, the harvest festival, had come early. The campaign circus has breathed a short-lived booming economy into the town, nestled on the banks of the river. Hotels and restaurants are fully booked. There is free karaoke and beer. Food has been ordered for the various meetings in the longhouses. Election bunting, banners and billboards are everywhere. Boats going up-river are filled to capacity. And best of all politicians are promising building projects, more development and they are signing checks, with the promise of more.
But the reality is far from rosy. There is cyclical flooding, poor infrastructure, a lack of social services, rising prices, declining business and employment. In addition, the people are furious about the mismanagement of resources by Sarawak’s chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who has run the state since 1981 and has been accused perennially of lining his pockets through resource-extraction companies owned by his family.
When the Chinese Foochow clan settled on the shores of the Rejang at the beginning of the 20th Century, there were visions of agricultural prosperity and trade with the interior. But the dream soon became a disaster. Development was sluggish, just like the boggy marshland surrounding Sibu. Only a handful of hotels, mansions, shopping malls and office blocks owned by the timber giants, thrived.
Improbably, the swan is depicted as the town symbol despite the fact that swans are not a naturally occurring species there or anywhere else in Malaysia. The majority of the community especially its indigenous people, have no strong attachment to this adopted ‘Symbol of Sibu’. They consider the swan too artificial and feel it a reflection of their sentiments for this election.
Therefore, the election will be an interesting test of Barisan Nasional’s ability to reclaim the Chinese votes it lost earlier in the Hulu Selangor by-election on the Malaysian mainland. The constituency has 54,695 voters, of which 66 percent are predominantly Foochow. The other groups are Malay/Melanau (17 percent), Ibans (15 percent) with the remainder from the Bidayuh, Orang Ulu and Indian communities. There are 2,537 postal voters from the police and army personnel at two military camps.
