Anwar Ibrahim, already abandoned last year at the national level by respected lawyer and top opposition party official Zaid Ibrahim, is finding that his PKR opposition party’s fragile national coalition with a conservative Islamic party (PAS) and a left-wing Chinese Party (DAP) now risks falling apart in Borneo, where important state elections are to be held in the state of Sarawak on April 16th.
Worse still, in an election where the biggest battleground will be the 15 Chinese ethnic majority seats in the 71-seat state assembly, an incumbent Anwar ally in his PKR party – Dominique Ng – is accusing his own opposition party of “betrayal and treachery”. This is because the Sarawak state affiliate of Anwar’s PKR party may drop him as its candidate when the nominations are announced this week and may swap his seat with one being contested elsewhere by the DAP.
Mr. Ng has threatened to stand as an independent, which could further weaken Anwar’s coalition, while the leaders of the Chinese ethnic DAP party have basically told Anwar’s PKR not to try and move in and take over its own seats or else.
To complicate matters further, Anwar’s PKR and its ally the Sarawak National Party (SNAP) are also in conflict and have failed to reach an electoral pact, so there will be overlapping and three-cornered races that can only weaken and damage the opposition.
What this is all about is that as the state nears its all-important April 6th “Nominaton Day” and the election campaign shifts into high gear, the internal rivalry in Sarawak among Anwar’s coalition members has increased. This is in stark contrast to the unity of the governing coalition led by incumbent Chief Minister Abdul Taib bin Mahmud, which on Sunday already unveiled its full list of candidates for the 71 state assembly seats.
Not only did Taib’s list of candidates put the opposition on the backfoot; it also contained a number of fresh faces and youthful candidates who should be popular among the urban and younger voters of the “Facebook generation.”
In any American or British election, that kind of unity and clarity on the part of the incumbent would be helpful, and that kind of internal party conflict and disarray on the part of the opposition would be a recipe for disaster.
In Sarawak, where Anwar is now embarked upon a nine-day campaign swing, it looks like the controversy over Mr. Ng, together with other disagreements about who gets to fight which seats, could leave Anwar and his Chinese opposition allies both divided and potentially dysfunctional, even if they will undoubtedly try and put on a brave show of unity for the actual campaign.
Given the importance of the Chinese ethnic vote for both the opposition and the ruling coalition candidates, the current controversy might raise doubts among the Chinese as to just how committed Anwar Ibrahim really is to their interests.
In fact the more conflict there is among opposition parties, the more some Chinese voters who might have been willing to consider voting for the opposition candidates before, might now simply decide to switch back and vote for the governing coalition parties. That is certainly what would happen in other countries if voters felt that their constituencies – and their votes – were being horse-traded by opposition parties.
Mr. Ng’s shock was triggered last Saturday when Sarawak’s DAP chairman told a press conference that the DAP would contest the seat in the constituency now represented by Mr Ng, a district called Padungan. With top members of Anwar’s PKR party also present at the same press conference, it looked like Mr. Ng was being dropped.
In the local Sarawak press at the weekend, Mr. Ng told reporters: “I felt that my loyalty to the party has been repaid with betrayal and treachery by the current Sarawak PKR leadership.”
But he claimed that Anwar Ibrahim was unaware of the DAP announcement, suggesting that perhaps he might end up being reinstated. And in a show of how deep the internal opposition strife runs, Mr. Ng even said that he might consider running as an independent candidate if Anwar’s surrogates really dropped him as a PKR candidate.
In addition, it appears that Anwar’s PKR party is also at loggerheads with its ally the Sarawak National Party (SNAP). The vice-president of SNAP, Johnny Wong, has said SNAP is going ahead with separate candidates of its own after failing tor each an electoral distribution of seats deal with PKR. “It is the end of the road in our talks with PKR,” he said at the weekend.
Anwar’s party is also going ahead with 48 candidates, and all this means confusion and disarray on the opposition side.
PKR vice president Tian Chua issued a statement at the weekend saying that PKR’s efforts “to reach an electoral pact with SNAP for the Sarawak state elections have been continually frustrated.”
Whatever happens next in this continuing soap opera of accusations and discord among Anwar’s not-too-cooperative Sarawak allies, there is no doubt that the gloves are about to come off in the Sarawak election.
The challenge for Anwar Ibrahim is to try and keep his coalition partners from fighting with each other. A divided house can only fall!
Worse still, in an election where the biggest battleground will be the 15 Chinese ethnic majority seats in the 71-seat state assembly, an incumbent Anwar ally in his PKR party – Dominique Ng – is accusing his own opposition party of “betrayal and treachery”. This is because the Sarawak state affiliate of Anwar’s PKR party may drop him as its candidate when the nominations are announced this week and may swap his seat with one being contested elsewhere by the DAP.
Mr. Ng has threatened to stand as an independent, which could further weaken Anwar’s coalition, while the leaders of the Chinese ethnic DAP party have basically told Anwar’s PKR not to try and move in and take over its own seats or else.
To complicate matters further, Anwar’s PKR and its ally the Sarawak National Party (SNAP) are also in conflict and have failed to reach an electoral pact, so there will be overlapping and three-cornered races that can only weaken and damage the opposition.
What this is all about is that as the state nears its all-important April 6th “Nominaton Day” and the election campaign shifts into high gear, the internal rivalry in Sarawak among Anwar’s coalition members has increased. This is in stark contrast to the unity of the governing coalition led by incumbent Chief Minister Abdul Taib bin Mahmud, which on Sunday already unveiled its full list of candidates for the 71 state assembly seats.
Not only did Taib’s list of candidates put the opposition on the backfoot; it also contained a number of fresh faces and youthful candidates who should be popular among the urban and younger voters of the “Facebook generation.”
In any American or British election, that kind of unity and clarity on the part of the incumbent would be helpful, and that kind of internal party conflict and disarray on the part of the opposition would be a recipe for disaster.
In Sarawak, where Anwar is now embarked upon a nine-day campaign swing, it looks like the controversy over Mr. Ng, together with other disagreements about who gets to fight which seats, could leave Anwar and his Chinese opposition allies both divided and potentially dysfunctional, even if they will undoubtedly try and put on a brave show of unity for the actual campaign.
Given the importance of the Chinese ethnic vote for both the opposition and the ruling coalition candidates, the current controversy might raise doubts among the Chinese as to just how committed Anwar Ibrahim really is to their interests.
In fact the more conflict there is among opposition parties, the more some Chinese voters who might have been willing to consider voting for the opposition candidates before, might now simply decide to switch back and vote for the governing coalition parties. That is certainly what would happen in other countries if voters felt that their constituencies – and their votes – were being horse-traded by opposition parties.
Mr. Ng’s shock was triggered last Saturday when Sarawak’s DAP chairman told a press conference that the DAP would contest the seat in the constituency now represented by Mr Ng, a district called Padungan. With top members of Anwar’s PKR party also present at the same press conference, it looked like Mr. Ng was being dropped.
In the local Sarawak press at the weekend, Mr. Ng told reporters: “I felt that my loyalty to the party has been repaid with betrayal and treachery by the current Sarawak PKR leadership.”
But he claimed that Anwar Ibrahim was unaware of the DAP announcement, suggesting that perhaps he might end up being reinstated. And in a show of how deep the internal opposition strife runs, Mr. Ng even said that he might consider running as an independent candidate if Anwar’s surrogates really dropped him as a PKR candidate.
In addition, it appears that Anwar’s PKR party is also at loggerheads with its ally the Sarawak National Party (SNAP). The vice-president of SNAP, Johnny Wong, has said SNAP is going ahead with separate candidates of its own after failing tor each an electoral distribution of seats deal with PKR. “It is the end of the road in our talks with PKR,” he said at the weekend.
Anwar’s party is also going ahead with 48 candidates, and all this means confusion and disarray on the opposition side.
PKR vice president Tian Chua issued a statement at the weekend saying that PKR’s efforts “to reach an electoral pact with SNAP for the Sarawak state elections have been continually frustrated.”
Whatever happens next in this continuing soap opera of accusations and discord among Anwar’s not-too-cooperative Sarawak allies, there is no doubt that the gloves are about to come off in the Sarawak election.
The challenge for Anwar Ibrahim is to try and keep his coalition partners from fighting with each other. A divided house can only fall!
TQSARAWAKREPORT
Post a Comment