TAJEM SEES TAIB’S RULE ENDING DISCORDANTLY

Tajem sees Taib’s rule ending discordantly

By Joe Fernandez

KUCHING: Sarawak’s elder statesman Daniel Tajem Anak Miri considers it a modern day Grecian tragedy that Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, 74, finds it extremely difficult to relinquish his  post even after three decades in office.

This has led to his detractors dubbing Taib, a Melanau Dayak the “last white-haired rajah of Sarawak” – a pun on the Brooke Dynasty of white rajahs who ruled the state for 150 years until British colonial rule after World War 11.

“Perhaps the frail and ailing leader, wrestling with the aftermath of colon cancer, is not being allowed to quit by any number of self-serving hangers-on,” said Tajem.

“He should have an exit strategy by now but there’s no evidence of this,” added Tajem, an Iban Dayak who served as deputy chief minister to Taib in the early 80s.

“It can only end badly. His legacy is the destruction of a political system which does not revolve around an all-powerful Chief Minister.”

Never challenged

The Sarawak Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) advisor was commenting on the ruling Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) returning Taib unopposed for the umpteenth time as party chief recently.

Taib has never been challenged for the party leadership since he assumed power from his maternal uncle Abdul Rahman Yakub in 1981.

FreeMalaysiaToday caught up with Tajem on the sidelines of a meeting of the Borneo Forum – a newly-formed umbrella body for NGOs in Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Kalimantan on Sunday in Kota Kinabalu.

Tajem is of the view that Taib should just take the bull by the horns and publicly announce that he’s quitting and walk away from it all.

This is expected to bring about a situation where the various political parties in government would arrive by consensus on a new chief minister.

“Once Taib makes a public announcement that he is quitting, there will be no room for hangers-on to manipulate the situation to their own personal advantage,” said Tajem.

“It’s just a handful of fat cats holding the political system and the people to ransom.”

Power structure

Reiterating that Taib had long over-stayed his welcome, Tajem dismissed the notion that the man was somehow considered indispensable to the people of Sarawak.

“It’s not true,” said Tajem. “People would like to see the back of his head but are helplessly caught up in a vice-like grip which keeps him in power.”

He described the power structure in the state as one which keeps the Malays – Bidayuh and Iban Dayaks who converted to Islam – and Muslim Melanaus locked in the Bumiputera wing of PBB and the Chinese in Sarawak United People’s Party(Supp).

The legislative seats of the Dayak majority – less two – are in government but divided among the Pesaka wing, Supp, Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) and Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP).

“Within PBB, Pesaka has fewer state legislators compared with the Bumiputera wing,” said Tajem. “This ensures that the Dayaks, or at least the non-Muslims, will never be able to challenge the Taib dynasty’s dominance of Sarawak politics through PBB.”

Matters are being compounded by the ‘towkay syndrome’ – Chinese moneybags – allegedly dictating Dayak politics at the behest of PBB, in PRS and SPDP as in Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) and Sarawak National Party (Snap).

PBDS is a 1983 breakaway from Snap – the first party to rule Sarawak since Malaysia Day in 1963 which in turn spawned PRS in December 2003.

Politics of patronage

The rump Snap spawned SPDP in November 2002 after it was deregistered but later given an uncertain lease of life by the courts.

SPDP is now split down the middle as a result of the “towkay syndrome”. Most of the SPDP legislators fled yesterday to the PRS.

The entire political structure, said Tajem, is based on the politics of patronage which is fuelling moral deprivation, corruption, injustice, victimisation and abuse of power.

He predicted that Taib’s day of reckoning will come sooner rather than later, “when the people turn against him and his kitchen cabinet.”

“This would happen through the wholesale rejection of him by the people,” said Tajem.

Tajem, who retired from politics after PBDS, which he founded, was deregistered the day PRS was registered, cited the fate of Terengganu Menteri Besar Wan Mokhtar Ahmad as a case in point.

Wan Mokhtar, like Taib, refused to step down after being MB for 27 years and was flattened by the opposition in 1999.

“We also have the example of voters in Peninsular Malaysia rejecting Barisan Nasional by a majority in 2008,” said Tajem who expects a similar political tsunami to wash over Sabah and Sarawak.

Grave period of instability

Going further back, in 1985 Sabah Chief Minister Harris Salleh even lost his electoral deposit in Tenom, during the state election, recalled Tajem.

“His mighty Berjaya party was demolished by the Parti Bersatu Sabah which was only 45 days old then.”

In any case, Tajem is looking beyond Taib and sees Sarawak politics set for a grave period of political instability whether Taib stays or goes.

“Taib has already sown the seeds of political chaos in Sarawak by clinging on to power for far too long,” Tajem.

“The longer a leader stays in power, the greater will be the instability that follows with the eventual departure of that leader. Look at Indonesia after Suharto, Yugoslavia after Tito and Peninsular Malaysia after Mahathir.”

However, he’s making no predictions for PKR which is in partnership in Sarawak with the Democratic Action Party, PAS and Snap.

“Let the people of Sarawak decide what they want,” said Tajem. “Their hour of liberation from the tyranny of the current political system is nearer than we realise.”