The DAP is moving ahead with its own preparations for the coming Sarawak election that must be called for on or before June 20 next year.

Simmering tensions between DAP and PKR, however, have led to its potential seat candidates working on their own when going down to the ground.

Some of them have even given up on PKR and joined the DAP.

Dayak activist Paul Raja said he is among the 12 former PKR leaders and activists who joined the DAP last month as they believe DAP's ‘Impian Sarawak’ agenda was the most viable platform to promote the community’s interests.

“We know each other and always wanted to work together. We see there is mutual benefit, that is the reason we joined DAP.

“The Dayak community has always been with BN through PBB but it didn’t work well and the community generally has not benefited from its support,” said the 49-year-old Native Customary Rights (NCR) land lawyer in an interview with Malaysiakini at the DAP headquarters in Petaling Jaya yesterday.

According to Raja, the group is willing to help DAP break through traditional BN Dayak rural bastions in exchange for a written commitment from DAP to respect their rights as the majority community in Sarawak through the signing of a seven-point blueprint.

Among others, the blueprint touches on Dayak political leadership, NCR land reform, a national indigenous development policy and plans to develop native human capital.

DAP Sarawak chairperson Chong Chien Jen confirmed that Raja was among those being considered as potential candidates to contest in areas beyond the 12 Chinese-majority urban seats DAP won in 2011. The party had contested 15 seats.

He said this even as negotiations were still ongoing with PKR to resolve issues surrounding overlapping seat claims.

“I will not want to dwell on the past. I will focus on the future,” said Raja on the reasons for his departure from PKR.

Raja is involved in two NGOs - the Dayak National Congress (DNC) that fights for Dayak rights and the Sarawak Centre for Rights of Indigenous People (Scrip) that promotes the recording of oral histories of indigenous people.

'Change your life'

“PKR used to do work in the rural areas and DAP’s focus is on urban seats. But now with us joining DAP, this is an opportunity for all parties to prove themselves,” he said, adding that there does not seem to be an existing form of cooperation between the two parties on the ground.

Raja also said the issue of candidacy should be left in the hands of DAP Sarawak’s leaders though "they are open for nominations" for any rural seats.

“In the Dayak areas, it is most important is to go down to the ground as the party is already quite well established in the urban areas.

“It is always in the mind of people that BN is strong but they must realise that the power comes from the people and we are telling them, ‘This is your chance to change your life’,” he said.

Most of the Dayak-majority seats in the 2011 state election were allocated to PKR but the party only won in three out of 49 seats it contested.

The Dewan Rakyat yesterday passed the controversial Sarawak electoral re-delineation exercise which increased the state's seats from 71 to 82.

The re-delineation exercise by the Election Commission was criticised by the opposition as an attempt to allow BN to retain the state by winning through gerrymandering in what is expected to be closely-fought state polls.