S’wak polls: Rude wake-up call for PKR
By Joe Fernandez, Free Malaysia Today
The propaganda barrage is intense. The story is that the Sarawak National Party (Snap) is a fifth column within the opposition alliance and or otherwise funded by the ruling Barisan Nasional to split votes and give the latter victory by default.
The fact that such self-serving talk emanates openly from PKR does not seem to augur too well for the fledging opposition alliance in Sarawak. PKR is clearly the spoiler in the pack.
It’s true that the BN in Sarawak has been known to fund at least one mosquito party which appears from nowhere, on the eve of state elections, to make a bid for every seat.
The most infamous example was Parti Negara Rakyat Sarawak (Negara) in the early 1990s which was funded by Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB)-linked moneybags. The party lost every seat but in the process managed to draw away enough votes from the opposition especially in the marginal and mixed seats.
If Snap is indeed being funded by BN as PKR strenuously claims, notwithstanding various devious attempts in the past by Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud to finish it off once and for all, this is something that’s best seen to be believed.
PKR seems patently oblivious to the inconvenient fact that Daniel Tajem, Taib’s arch political enemy and nemesis, is Snap adviser. Hence, BN funding for Snap is an unlikely scenario given the history of mutual animosity between the two men.
Taib has been known to openly ridicule Tajem even in the Iban longhouses. Here, the Melanau Dayak Taib puts on his Dayak mask while downplaying his faith in the process.
There is also the fact that Snap is not going for every seat unlike Negara. A BN-funded Snap would surely go for all 71 state seats. Also, the talk is that former PKR vice-president Jeffrey Kitingan may be Snap’s director of operations for the elections. Again, this rules out the “BN-funded Snap” theory.
It’s not known how the opposition alliance will come together, if at all, before the April 6 nomination date. For one, there’s still no let-up in the PKR campaign against Snap as the former desperately attempts to discredit the latter in the eyes of the voters to claim the lion’s share of the seats. However, even their unlikely coming together will not assure the opposition alliance victory at the polls.
‘Melayu party from Malaya’
If at all the Ibans turn away from BN, and quite a number of them will do so in any case this time, they are more than likely to swear by the home-grown Snap rather than PKR. The latter is seen disparagingly by the parochial longhouse dwellers as a “Melayu party from Malaya.”
The Ibans know which side their political bread is buttered vis-a-vis Peninsular Malaysia. They may have more than a beef with the Taib regime but they will be damned if they are going to allow any orang luar (outsiders) to capitalise on the situation in the process.
The lessons of Sabah from 1994, and the current predicament of the Dusun, are only too well etched in their minds. Nine out of the 12 state cabinet positions in Sabah, including that of chief minister, are today held by Peninsular Malaysian parties. That’s more than enough to scare off the locals from a Kuala Lumpur-controlled Sarawak PKR for good.
No doubt, in the post April 16-period, PKR will have to seriously re-think its presence in Sabah and Sarawak or kiss Putrajaya goodbye forever.
