Taib strengthens vice-like grip on Sarawak

By Joe Fernandez

ANALYSIS Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud has now outdone even himself with the news that the state government has prepared a white paper to keep out “certain trends”.

The first of these is “unhealthy politics” whatever that means; secondly, “anti-rich people” – read corruption-politics; and thirdly, “agitating the people to overthrow the state government”. The Taib regime blames unhealthy politics for its recent loss of the Sibu parliamentary seat in a by-election.

That’s Taib, in a nutshell, re-inventing himself in preparation for the state election which must be held by the middle of this year. He wants to ensure that Sarawak remains his family’s private paradise in perpetuity.

Translating Taib’s paranoia into action means that people from Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah who fall within certain categories would be banned from entering Sarawak. These include opposition politicians; the media, presumably the alternative media and bloggers; and NGOs. Once a person is blacklisted by the Immigration Department, he or she would be permanently banned from entering Sarawak. The only way that a banned person can enter Sarawak again is through reincarnation.

The white paper makes interesting reading. Opposition politicians are seen, crudely put, as “great liars” unlike those from the ruling coalition “who only speak the Gospel truth”; the alternative media is being castigated for inventing “news manufacturing” – an euphemism for lies – while the NGOs are allegedly on the take from foreigners to create trouble in Sarawak. Taib sees no need to bother with little things like coming up with the proof to dispel the notion that he likes telling fairy tales to amuse himself.

The white paper is recognition enough that Taib now sees “outsiders” as the main threat to his family’s dynastic hold on the politics of Sarawak. He reckons that he has the internal threats under control after three decades in office.

The number of Chinese state seats has been reduced to 15 out of the total of 71. This effectively means that the Chinese are no longer the kingmakers in Sarawak politics, as in the past, playing off the Dayaks against the Muslims.

If the Chinese in Sarawak are to have any impact in politics, they have to forget their parochialism of the past and make common cause with their brethren in Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia under one political platform. The DAP is vying for that honour. Taib is acutely aware of this threat to his monopoly of the state’s politics and hence one reason for the white paper.

No ganging up

Taib hopes to make it as difficult as possible for the Chinese in Sarawak to gang up against his government in league with their brethren elsewhere in Malaysia. He woos them too late. It’s unlikely to make any difference for the better as far as he’s concerned.

The Dayaks who have about half the seats in the state assembly have been splintered among the opposition and four political parties in the state government, namely the Bumiputera-based multiracial Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), the Dayak-based multiracial Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), the Dayak-based multiracial Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) and the Chinese-based multiracial Sarawak United Peoples Party (SUPP).

Within PBB, the Dayaks including the non-Muslim Melanau form a third of the membership and the state seats. The others are Malay and Muslim Melanau. This ensures that PBB would remain under Muslim control and in particular under the Melanau since the other Dayak in the party would not welcome the Malays leading PBB. They feel that they have a better claim.

The Muslims in Sarawak, Malays and Melanaus, are found only in PBB.

Likewise, the Chinese are found in SUPP.

Again, this means that only the Dayaks are not allowed to unite under one political platform since that would mean a threat to Taib’s hold on power. Taib kicked out the Sarawak National Party (SNAP) from the state Barisan Nasional and this party together with PKR has further splintered the Dayak vote bank.

The creation of the SCORE (Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy) region in Sarawak for energy-intensive industries and as a new corridor of economic growth is likely to result in the influx of foreign labour, presumably Muslim, from neighbouring countries. This means the Dayaks and local Muslims would be increasingly disenfranchised with the influx of the foreigners who can be placed strategically in half the seats in Sarawak, especially the marginal ones. This is what’s happening to the KadazanDusunMurut in Sabah and the local Muslims.

Already, there are 500,000 foreign workers in Sarawak, about half of them illegal immigrants. The nightmare scenario in Sabah where there are 1.7 million foreigners as against 1.5 million locals has come to Sarawak.

Long stay

Taib, as a Melanau, comes from a Dayak community which numbers fewer than 100,000 and has equal numbers of pagans, Christians and Muslims. Most urban Dayaks are wary of the Muslim Melanau, Taib’s family in particular, and see them as “an exploiting class of criminals sheltering in government”.

The white paper confirms Taib’s publicly stated views that his coalition will not be able to sweep all the seats at stake at the next state election. He may even lose up to a third of the seats and putting at risk his two-third majority in the State Legislative Assembly. Taib wants to minimise this possibility by creating a situation where the local opposition remains isolated from its counterparts in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah.

The main issue against Taib is his long stay in public office and, as a result, two generations – going on to a third – being denied the right to rule themselves.

Elsewhere, he and his ministers have failed to publicly declare their assets; he’s unable to explain his tremendous wealth considering his known sources of income; and he has refused an independent international audit of his wealth, fearing his ill-gotten gains would be repatriated under international law.

Taib cannot explain why Sarawak in general, the Dayaks in particular, are among the poorest in Malaysia. Meanwhile, he continues to reduce them to a landless peasantry by the systematic confiscation of their Native Customary Right (NCR) land under one guise or another for plantation development. The Dayaks are reduced to virtually being plantation slaves on their own land.

Patently, Taib fears the opposition coming to power. He and his family, relatives and cronies would be in deep trouble when a new government conducts an independent audit of the timber industry and sets up a Royal Commission of Inquiry on his 30-year rule and that of his predecessor and maternal uncle Abdul Rahman Yakub. - FMT