The recent Julau controversy in PKR poll was a big let down for PKR in Sarawak. Immediately prior to the recent party poll, Julau PKR membership suddenly jumped to over 13,000 members from just around 600 previously. Such a large increase in party membership would have been welcomed in a remote rural Sarawak, but instead it rang an alarm bell.
The unusual activities actually threatened to upset the party’s election process not just in Sarawak, but also in the whole country, in particular the position of Azmin as the party’s deputy president.
Sarawakians have never witnessed such a scenario first hand, one that affects the party’s lineup, in particular its Sarawak Chief Baru Bian. All we heard earlier were distant happenings that affected PKR national lineup, which we didn’t care about really. More so since those happenings occurred long time ago beyond the knowledge of our young, who today form a very important block of voters, not just in Malaya but also in Sarawak.
My regression analysis of the GE 13 data confirmed that young voters in the 2013 election supported BN but could change their party loyalty depending on which side could sway them the most. This finding was proven correct in the GE 14 results.
Many people believed that the sequence of events prior to the Julau fiasco point to Anwar having a hand in it to stamp the tide of Azmin’s popularity in the party. Though this failed to unseat Azmin, it nevertheless delivered collateral damage to Baru Bian, an Azmin loyalist [Subsequent events witnessed Baru Bian’s exit from PKR and his reason for doing so]
Hence, PKR now has another contender to party leadership in Sarawak in the person of Larry Sng, although at this stage he said that he was not interested. Moreover, Anwar insisted that Baru Bian would not stand for the national party line up, thus preferring to keep him as Sarawak head. Still this is an exciting premise, given the long history of intrigues and betrayal in PKR in the past.
I knew Anwar long before today’s young voters were born. He was the most charismatic student leader I have ever seen in real life. He was two years my senior in University of Malaya in late 60’s and early 70’s. When I entered the university, socialist ideology was prevalent in the campus and it dominated the main student body. Anwar changed it overnight and students, at least Malay students, changed their political ideals to malay nationalism, which DAP nowadays call racism.
We lived at an exciting and turbulent time of transition in the country’s political leadership from Tunku Abdul Rahman to Tun Razak. In the process, Tunku kicked out Mahathir from UMNO for his extreme Malay politics and vicious criticisms of the Tunku through his book The Malay Dilemma.
In fact, Mahathir owed it to Anwar to popularise his book among University and college students at that time. Street demonstrations were common and scenario chaotic with students incensed at Tunku’s leadership style which was widely viewed by the Malays as giving away to the Chinese. But that happened long ago when both Mahathir and Anwar were heroes among us.
Things have changed a lot after these two heroes have tasted power. Political intrigues and manipulations came in complete with rumours of corruption and financial mismanagement in order to strengthen own’s power.
In this current twist of events at Julau, nobody could have imagined that Baru Bian, the long time state PKR leader, always anointed as the Pakatan Chief Minister designate, would not be in the top party lineup. When the new PKR national line up was announced, many must have wondered why Baru Bian’s name was nowhere around.
Instead, one could see Larry Sng’s name, a new comer to PKR, son of Datuk Sng Chee Hua, a well known Sarawak tycoon, who always found himself in the centre of controversy in Dayak politics. Now the Sng family again did it at Julau, but with it comes national political controversy with strong rumours of money politics.This is sheer genius! Or was it really?
To quell the controversy, Anwar quickly condemned his own PKR election machinery. Whether he is part of the controversy or independent of it, no one knows for certain. But, people were curious why it had happened at all and why he only spoke against it when the election results were already known.
PKR party elections were often marred by controversy, but when it happened at such an outrageous scale and against candidates not viewed as aligned to Anwar, people are bewildered. It makes a mockery of this outfit once upon a time viewed as the model reform party in the country.
It is yet to be seen whether Baru Bian will be reappointed as the party’s State Chief. There is no choice really, otherwise PKR’s long time strategy to woo the Sarawak rural community will go down the drain. But the seeds of distrust have been sown and it was obvious the Baru Bian must have felt betrayed.
There are already rumours that he was being wooed by GPS and PPBM. In PPBM he would be expected to be loyal to Mahathir, best known as a domineering Malayan leader who is not sympathetic to Sarawak rights. In GPS he can dedicate himself fully to serve Sarawak, the land of his birth and of his ancestors.
Furthermore, I feel he is in dilemma right now as to whether he could really continue to fight for NCR land while being under the shadow of the tycoon Sng family, a name not at all compatible with this struggle.
DAH IKHWAN
