Abang Jo’s luck is running out – Part 2

To break up the dominance of GPS in Sarawak is not as hard as one might think it is.

the writer wishes to remain anonymous

In the first part of this series of articles, I ended by saying that Sarawak is ripe for conquest and Putrajaya is likely going to conquer it soon.

Reading it, some of you might ask, why is it necessary for Putrajaya to conquer Sarawak? Isn’t Sarawak already ruled by Putrajaya?

Well, to put it simply, the answer to that question is no, Sarawak is not ruled by Putrajaya. Sarawak is not even ruled by Sarawakians as a matter of fact. Instead, Sarawak is ruled by a small cabal of politicians, most of whom are linked by blood or marriage and trace their legacy to Taib Mahmud, the former governor and premier of Sarawak, who reigned like an olden day king for more than 40 years until his death in February 2024.

In the past, when Putrajaya was held by BN, Sarawak was ruled by Putrajaya, but since BN’s reign collapsed in 2018, Putrajaya no longer has much if any influence in matters relating to Sarawak.

The fall of BN in 2018 has been very lucky for Abang Jo and the inner circle in GPS, for the political uncertainty that descended in Putrajaya since then has caused Putrajaya to need Sarawak much more than Sarawak needs Putrajaya.

Because the contending political factions in Semenanjung desperately needs Sarawak’s backing to reign in Putrajaya, for 7 long years Abang Jo and the political elites of Sarawak have not only been able to regularly sneer at Putrajaya without receiving any rebuke from Putrajaya, they have been able to extract all sorts of concessions from Putrajaya, including an airline, a port, a promise that it and Sabah will get 35 percent of the seats in parliament and even the right to be the primary host of the SEA Games in 2027.

Abang Jo’s  7 years of luck however, is likely running out, because after taking over Putrajaya in 2022, Anwar has finally managed to significantly quell the opposition to his rule and put the political uncertainty in Putrajaya to a degree of rest.

While successive governments in Putrajaya had to bend over backwards to accommodate the whims and wishes of Abang Jo and GPS for the last 7 years, Anwar’s administration, starting from the fourth quarter of 2024, will likely no longer have to do so.

Anwar will no longer need to do so, because the trump card that Abang Jo and GPS held over Anwar, which is that if Putrajaya do not flatter them and defer to their wishes, Abang Jo and GPS can switch their support from PH to PN, and cause a change of government in Putrajaya is no longer applicable.

By doing things like getting 6 Bersatu MPs to switch their allegiance to him and slap Muhyiddin Yassin, the leader of the opposition, with enough legal troubles to circle the earth and reach the moon, Anwar has so weakened PN that even if GPS throws its weight behind PN, PN might not be able to capitalise on it and cause a change of government in Putrajaya.

Anwar also has likely won over the support of a faction in GPS, and thus disabled or at least weakened GPS’s ability to switch support to PN. If Abang Jo tries to switch GPS’s support from PH to PN, it is unlikely that he will be able to convince enough of Sarawak’s MPs to threaten Anwar’s reign.

With Abang Jo’s and GPS’s trump card weakened in this manner, Anwar and PH are now free to wrest Sarawak from Abang Jo before Sarawak’s state election is due in 2026.

Anwar will most certainly be attempting to do so, not only because it is just the nature of rulers like Anwar to invade and conquer territories that are ripe for conquest – if he is not attempting to defeat someone or conquer something, a winner like Anwar is just not going to be able to feel like himself – but also because of a more practical reason, which is that Anwar and PH needs to establish a foothold in Sabah and Sarawak in order to fully secure their rule of Putrajaya.

As the 6 state elections in August 2023 and the subsequent by-election in Semenanjung has indicated, the voters in Semenanjung are likely going to remain firm with their political choices, which means that when GE16 is held, the result will likely be no different from the results of GE15, where both PN and PH will get almost an equal amount of seats, with neither being able to secure the minimum number of seats to rule.

If Anwar and PH are to prevent the political uncertainties that followed after GE15 to repeat again in GE16, they will have to find more seats in order to have a comfortable lead over PN, and the only place they are going to be able to find it is in Sabah and Sarawak.

It is not only Anwar and PH that are thinking of finding more seats in Sabah and Sarawak – PN is also having the same aim , although between PH and PN, it is likely that only PH will stand a reasonable chance to win more seats in Sabah and Sarawak. (It is unlikely that PN, which is dominated by the clerical class in PAS, will make much headway in Sabah, much less Sarawak, where non-muslims form the majority,)

In order for PH to find a foothold in Sarawak, the dominance of GPS in Sarawak needs to be broken, and it is for this aim that Anwar and PH are likely not giving Sarawak more oil and gas rights, or allow it to purchase a bank or grant it 35 percent of the seats in the Dewan Rakyat.

To break up the dominance of GPS in Sarawak is not as hard as one might think it is. While on paper, GPS might look invincible, with its 23 of 31 of Sarawak’s parliamentary seats as well as 76 out of 82 of the state seats, but in reality, GPS is actually in a much weaker position than what we tend to believe.

I will elaborate more on why Abang Jo and GPS is actually weaker than how they appear in the next article but for now, it is suffice to say that for 7 long years, Abang Jo and his coterie of merry men in GPS might have have been able to put on a charade that they are a united front that represents the aspirations of Sarawakians and that they are capable of standing up to Putrajaya for Sarawak, but if Anwar puts their act to test, it it likely that their charade will fall apart.

Abang Jo and his coterie of merry men in GPS can only maintain the illusion that they are capable of standing up to Putrajaya, for so long that both PH and PN need the support of GPS to reign in Putrajaya.

Now that Anwar and PH have established their rule in Putrajaya to an extent that they might not need GPS’s support in order to rule in Putrajaya any longer, if Abang Jo and GPS stand up to Putrajaya, they might commit a mistake that will give Anwar and PH an opening to break up GPS.

Putrajaya’s refusal to give GPS things like a bank, oil and gas rights, 35 percent of the Dewan Rakyat seats are likely attempts by Anwar to force Abang Jo to commit such a mistake.

Anwar is a bona fide warrior who made his bones by waging a long war to conquer Putrajaya and he has conquered it by the merit of defeating all of his opponents.

Abang Jo however, is just someone who happened to wear the crown and sit on the throne despite the fact that he has zero experience of fighting or conquering anything in his life, because Fortune was amusing Herself with him by bestowing him Her favour for 7 years.

Fortune, however, as they say, is fickle, and although fortune is now arranging the circumstances in such a manner that Abang Jo can rule even without lifting a finger, it is highly doubtful that Abang Jo will be able to maintain his reign, if his reign is put to test by someone as formidable as Anwar.

If I were to make a prediction, I predict that Abang Jo’s reign will end before 2026, when the Sarawak state election is next due.

In the next part, we shall discuss further why the odds do not favour Abang Jo and GPS winning against Anwar and PH. Stay tuned.