PKR loses poll fight before it starts
Laja Lang, The Heat Malaysia
Nurhanim Hanna Mokhsen was sitting downcast and all by herself at one end of the table waiting for the press conference to start. I got the feeling this PKR national women exco member, didn’t feel like talking when I tried to start a conversation.
I sensed she too was somewhat angry. To her right, about two arms length away sat Abun Sui Anyit, a party stalwart. He too was all by himself and looking downcast.
It was an unusual sight. Anyit was one of the livelier characters in PKR and that day a week ago, he was not up and about shaking hands and patting backs with journalists and party colleagues.
Their deflated spirit was linked to their prospective candidacy as their seats, the Malay-majority seat of Tupong in Kuching city for the housewife and the rural Dayak seat of Murum for the 42 year-old Kenyah lawyer and land rights activist, are the subject of a seat tussle between the two major partners in the Pakatan Harapan opposition coalition in the state – PKR and DAP.
Words reportedly had seeped out of the “closed-door” negotiation room in Petaling Jaya that DAP is “getting away with all the seats they want” and they could lose their tickets.
Last Friday party deputy president Datuk Seri Azmin Ali put them out of their misery but it was a terrible disappointment for Anyit.
The candidates’ list however showed all too clear that PKR had failed miserably in the negotiation.
Like it did in 2011, DAP has once again managed to bully, shove and elbow PKR at the negotiation table to get what it wants.
In 2011, it wanted to swap a seat and got what it wanted. It’s a seat which logically – unless dirty politics is at play – PKR has no reason to swap as it was held by their then state liaison chief Dominique Ng.
In anticipation of another round of seat fight with new rules imposed by DAP, PKR last December did some posturing by proudly announcing a provisional list of 45 candidates for the May 7 Sarawak election.
It was the first party to do so even though the election was months away.
The party at the same time was quick to tell DAP that of the 45 seats, 15 are “confirmed” and “non-negotiable”.
In the 2011 state election, of the 71 seats to be contested, PKR was allocated 49 – all the Dayak and Malay-majority seats while DAP was allocated 15 – all Chinese-majority seats.
Their then partner, PAS was allocated seven seats. PAS has since been booted out of the coalition and replaced by Parti Amanah Negara.
In that list of 15 non-negotiable seats are two new seats created from the Election Commission’s redelineation exercise in 2015.
They are the rural Dayak-majority seat of Murum and and Mulu in Baram. Murum has just over 7,000 mostly Kenyah and Kayan voters, while Mulu has over 8,000 voters who are mostly of the Kenyah and Kelabit ethnic tribes.
The two seats are much sought after by the opposition parties as they are buoyed by the belief that the widespread opposition to the construction of the Bakun, Murum and proposed Baram hydroelectric dams there could turn to opposition votes.
PKR named Anyit, to contest the Murum seat while it picked a party faithful, 55-year-old Paul Baya, for the Mulu seat. Both could be considered qualified as both possessed the right academic qualifications.
Anyit read his law at Universiti Teknologi Mara and his activism got him to the chair of Gerakan Anak Sarawak (Gasak), the umbrella body for the eight tribal NGOs.
Baya, on the other hand, is a Kayan who graduated from Universiti Sains Malaysia in economics and management studies.
Last year, Baya was in the media limelight for dragging the EC to court over the manner the commission conducted the delineation process that created the Murum, Mulu and nine other new seats.
Despite all the hands-off warnings and early bravado, it ended in a farcical manner and the resignation of a vice president who too found out his “confirmed” seat given to DAP.
Anyit and Baya must be left bewildered and wondering what had happened when their seats were allocated to DAP by the opposition bloc’s national leadership council.
Anyit and Baya have yet to react to their loss but their vice-president and Mas Gading branch chief, Boniface Willy Tumek, resigned all party posts in a huff and firing a parting salvo at those national leaders whom he likened to “young and small school boy(s)” trying their best to stay safe in a very hostile environment.
