SARAWAK FOCUS: Chief Minister Adenan Satem, who is the state Barisan Nasional chairman, is determined to secure his five-year term, so much so that he wants to field only “winnable” candidates in the coming state election.
He ignored the protest of Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP), which is a member of the state BN, when he announced that the five incumbent assemblymen now in Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras) will defend their seats which SPDP claims to be their traditional seats.
The five incumbent assemblymen won the seats while they were still SPDP members. But now they have formed Teras after a protracted crisis in SPDP. Teras is not a member of the BN coalition, but Adenan believes the new party can deliver the five seats.
It was a great mistake on the part of BN component parties to give “power” to the chief minister as the chairman of the State BN to select “winnable” candidates in the state because it is open to abuse.
Previously, the power was to endorse candidates submitted by the respective component parties so that they could use the BN symbol of dacing.
Each of these parties would meet with the prime minister who is the national BN chairman to hand over their lists of candidates.
The prime minister merely endorses the list.
But now the lists submitted by the state BN component parties must be approved by the chief minister as the prime minister has given him full authority to not only endorse the lists, but to also approve them.
Only then are they allowed to use the dacing and to receive funds for their election expenses.
Usually, these parties do not dare object to the chief minister selecting the candidates of his choice instead of the party’s choice, as otherwise they may end up not getting any financial aid or the support of the government machinery including that of the civil service.
The deregistered Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) was made to suffer for its refusal to subject its list of candidates for the approval of the PBB president and chairman of the state BN.
According to former PBDS president Daniel Tajem, previously the chairman of the state BN and the chairman of the federal BN endorsed the names of candidates to use the BN’s symbol of dacing.
Tajem said that the reason why PBDS refused to submit its list of candidates to be approved by the state chairman, who is also the PBB president, was that it feared it might lose its identity and power in doing so.
“Why should PBDS be treated as if it was another branch of PBB?” he asked.
PBDS also feared that the chief minister might replace its candidates and nominate others who are closely linked to PBB but who were not PBDS members, as candidates. PBDS’ refusal made the then chief minister Abdul Taib Mahmud angry.
Tajem said that as a result, PBDS’ candidates were not given any financial aid although they used the dacing symbol.
In the 2004 parliamentary election, their candidates were treated as “Barisan palsu” candidates.
“They even put up independent candidates against us, who were fully supported by the state government machinery and the civil service,” said Tajem, who was once appointed deputy chief minister under Taib.
The defunct Sarawak National Party (SNAP) had its candidates changed when it submitted its list to the chief minister.
In the 1996 state election, its candidates for Tasik Biru and Marudi were replaced with candidates allegedly linked to PBB.
In the 2006 state election, SPDP candidates for Bekenu and Batu Danau were also replaced with candidates who were not even members of SPDP.
Again in the 2011 state election, SPDP’ s candidate for Ba’Kelalan, Nelson Balang Rining, was replaced at the eleventh hour by a candidate allegedly linked to PBB.
Likewise, Parti Rakyat Sarawak's (PRS) candidates for the parliamentary seats of Sri Aman and Lubok Antu were replaced with others who were not members of the party.
PRS president James Masing himself was surprised with the replacements, but what could he do.
He had to accept PBB’s nominated candidates and expressed his sincere apologies to PRS’ recommended candidates.
All these are done in the name of “winnable” candidates.
In the 2013 parliamentary election, Prime Minister Najib Razak used this excuse to veto candidates proposed by other BN component parties as he wanted to ensure only ‘winnable’ candidates were fielded.
That was Najib’s first election as prime minister.
He was reported to have said that the election was his “war” and in that he must be allowed to choose “winnable” candidates based on the intelligence reports given to him.
He bluntly told BN component parties that he did not want their favourite candidates, but only winnable candidates.
For the coming state election, it appears that Adenan is adopting the same strategy – only winnable candidates should be fielded.
So far he had already announced ‘BN-friendly” candidates from Teras for the Tasik Biru, Marudi, Bekenu and Batu Danau seats which are traditionally allocated to SPDP.
Naturally, SPDP president Tiong King Sing is fuming with anger, accusing the PBB president of not respecting the rights of his party. He warns of disharmony within the BN coalition if Adenan insists on ignoring SPDP’s rights.
But Adenan, as of now, is not intimidated by such threats as he knows that PBB, being the backbone of the state government, can go on without SPDP.
The chief minister can afford to be arrogant as PBB can deliver the current 35 seats it is contesting or 40, if the increase of 11 seats is approved by Parliament. But completely ignoring SPDP could produce undesirable effects for BN, knowing what Tiong is capable of doing. -Theantdaily.
