Sarawak National Party (Snap) shifted up several gears today when its central executive committee named four former Panti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) stalwarts to key positions in preparation for state and parliamentary elections, both due soon and possibly simultaneously.

Lawyers Anthony Liman and Augustine Liom were made vice-presidents of the party - Liman given the director of elections portfolio while Liom is tasked with that perennial concern of the Dayak: native customary rights (NCR) land issues.

Paul Kadang, a former PBDS researcher-cum-strategist, was named deputy secretary-general while Patrick Saging was put on charge of training.

The first three are Iban politicians who were active in PBDS, which was a splinter of Snap in the early 1980s.

Saging, a Kelabit, was also active in PBDS at the height of its influence among Sarawak’s majority Dayak community in the late 1980s.

Since then, however, PBDS, after its failure to secure power in state elections in 1987 and 1991, was decimated by defections to BN component parties. The party was deregistered in the early 2000s.

Attempts to register the Malaysian Dayak Congress in the mid-2000s did not succeed, so ex-PBDS stalwarts like Lima, Liom, Kadang and Saging dallied with PKR for a bit before electing to throw in their lot with Snap.

Weakest opposition member

Snap holds the unique distinction of being the oldest multi-racial party in Sarawak and held power between the state’s merger with the Federation of Malaysia in 1963 and 1970 when Parti Pesaka Bumiputra Sarawak (PBB) gained ascendancy in Sarawak politics.

PBB’s now 40-year dominance is being challenged by the opposition triad of PKR, DAP and Snap.

Election to the state assembly must be held by July this year, with Prime Minister Najib Razak shaping up to call polls much earlier than incumbents BN’s writ runs out in 2013.

Snap is considered the weakest member of the loose opposition coalition in Sarawak, but with the induction of former PBDS stalwarts, that picture might change if the party focuses its energy on constituencies in the interior where their new inductees are known from their past association with PBDS.

In the Iban areas in the interior of Sarawak and in some parts where the Orang Ulu are domiciled, both Snap and PBDS evoke fond memories of their past prominence.

Nostalgia and an ingrained suspicion of peninsula-based parties are factors that a revitalised Snap can count on though that is paradoxical because Snap will fight the election in cahoots with peninsula-based PKR and DAP.

But sensitivity to these nuances is not an inhibiting factor in intra-coalition collaboration for the simple reason that the credibility of candidates rather than their party’s ideology matter more in Sarawak.

For that reason the quartet of Liman, Liom, Kadang and Saging – all known personalities in the Dayak political arena – are expected to impact on the electorate in straight fights with the BN.

Though Paul Kadang is not expected to stand, his experience of three decades as a backroom man in Sarawak politics, will help in terms of organisation and astute deployment of scarce resources.