OUTSPOKEN: When I said in my earlier article that Bukit Semuja will go to Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), my reasoning was, and still is, that Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) has had its quota of five new seats full and that SUPP being the next best party, is a logical choice.
Yes, even right now, I feel PBB, with 4,073 members – 2,584 from Kedup and 1,489 from Tebedu – is indeed the party with the strongest presence in Bukit Semuja.
Unfortunately, PBB has made its choice of five seats namely, Stakan, Kabong, Gedong, Tellian and Bukit Goram.
Its secretary-general Stephen Rundi has been put on record as telling BN component members to stop lobbying for these five seats and two others, Murum and Samalajau, which have been allocated to Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS).
And if that warning wasn’t enough, shortly after that, PBB president and state BN chairman Adenan Satem told a national daily “that matters related to seat allocation for PBB, the backbone of Sarawak BN, and its strongest ally, PRS, had been finalised”.
“Finalised” can only mean PBB will be contesting in 40 seats and PRS 11. No more no less.
PBB will contest in its 35 old seats and five new ones, while PRS will contest in 11 seats – its traditional nine seats of Baleh, Tamin, Balai Ringin, Pelagus, Bukit Begunan, Batang Ai, Ngemah, Belaga and Kakus, and the two new seats of Murum and Samalajau.
For PBB all that is left to do is name its 40 candidates. Adenan probably has all 40 names with him, and if that is indeed the case, he is just waiting for the right time to announce them.
On the other hand, PRS president James Masing has been very open about his candidates.
He is standing by all his incumbents and old-faithfuls except in Tamin where engineer Christopher Gira has been slated to replace Joseph Mauh who has decided to call it a day.
And hardly days after Samalajau and Bukit Goram were said to have been allocated to PRS, Masing announced his choice of candidates – Majang Renggie and Chuk Pai, respectively – which to me is a true display of self-confidence.
Whichever way one would like to see it, Masing does not scrap the barrel for his candidates; he has them all in place, and for that he deserves to be told what should be his earlier than the rest.
So, put it this way, the PBB and PRS case is settled, what remains is for Adenan to take care of SUPP and Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP).
Inevitably, two questions arise, one, will the remaining four seats – Serembu, Batu Kitang, Bukit Semuja and Murum – be divided equally between them? And two, will the two parties get to contest all their respective traditional seats?
To the first question, if there is such a thing as fairness in BN politics of power sharing, a fair measure of that fairness must be that SUPP should be given Batu Kitang and Bukit Semuja, and SPDP, Serembu and Murum.
To the second question, my answer is yes, and my reason is because United People’s Party (UPP) and Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras) are not members of BN.
To me, UPP and Teras will not be accepted into the BN because it is just too late to do that now.
The very reason (whatever that may be) that disqualifies UPP and Teras from being admitted into the BN until now is the reason why they will not be admitted anytime between now and the state election.
UPP and Teras should have been admitted months ago, which would have given the BN the time to heal wounds.
But that did not happen, and it is not about to happen, because SUPP and SPDP will do whatever is within their rights to stop that from happening.
If the state election is held on April 30 (the date proposed by Adenan), the state BN chief really has less than two months to do the necessary, which must be to save his coalition the embarrassment of going to the polls in disarray.
SUPP is not budging an inch for UPP; neither is SPDP for Teras, Adenan cannot risk having two component members licking wounds less than two months to the polls.
Speaking of “Team Adenan”, whatever that may be, it will and must be, made up of people coming from the component parties.
So, where will this leave UPP and Teras?
They have three options, one, return with no guarantee of being re-nominated to contest; two, fight it out as any decent opposition parties would do; and three, retire gracefully.
Call it Hobson’s choice if you like, otherwise, it’s all about eating humble pie.
Even Teras president William Mawan must be ready to eat humble pie if he dreams of landing a federal appointment because BN Plus does not exist at the federal level.
Prime Minister Najib Razak draws members of his Cabinet only from BN component parties, if Teras remains outside BN (and pointers are that it will) Mawan will be sitting across the floor from Najib’s men.
That’s what happened to those who left the BN, formed their own parties, declared themselves friends of BN and found themselves sitting among opposition legislators in Parliament.
JIMMY ADIT is a member of The Ant Daily team.
-The Ant Daily
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