COMMENT With the last Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) sitting for 2015 happening this week, all eyes will be on CM Adenan Satem whether he will be calling the highly-anticipated 11th state elections which has to be held before the terms expires in June 2016.

With speculations pointing to the month of March, both the state BN government and the opposition are in full gear rolling out their machineries as they prepare to woo voters in the upcoming elections, especially with the additional 11 state seats which was recently passed in parliament.

PKR from the opposition has even went ahead and announced their “non-negotiable” candidates and potential candidates in preparation for the election.

For the past years, Sarawak DAP on the other hand have been constantly making inroads into the rural heartland of Sarawak through their ‘Go Rural’ campaign and also Impian Sarawak programmes, on top of their solid support base among the urban constituencies in preparation to wrestle power from the current ruling government.

The BN state government is probably in its best shape heading into this current election. Aside from their internal squabbles involving UPP and Teras, the popularity of Adenan is at its highest with a Merdeka Center poll in July found that Adenan’s approval rating stands at 74 percent. Even the opposition have acknowledged that Adenan’s popularity could dent their chances of making more headway in the state.

That is probably Sarawak BN’s greatest election tactic. It is heavily banking on the popularity of its CM, with campaigns all around the state are focusing more on Adenan compared to the other BN candidates. That is why UPP and Teras are so desperate to get in bed with the other BN counterparts to ride on the popularity of Adenan for their own survival.

However, the biggest bane in Adenan’s closet is of course his unequivocal support for the allegedly highly detested Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak who is under pressure over alleged financial wrong doings in 1MDB as well as the unexplained RM2.6 billion fund transfer to his personal account.

Adenan is in fact, part of that ruling BN government which for the past 50 over years has mismanaged the country and allowed corruption, racial and religious sentiments to weigh down the country and further segregate the diverse population.

This is where the widely publicised dilemma of all Sarawakians is rooted in; where voting for a popular CM will also mean supporting an unpopular PM.

I personally applaud what Adenan is trying to achieve, or have said to want to achieve. His stand on demanding greater autonomy for the state, a bigger share of Sarawak’s oil revenues from the federal government and also the recent announcement to enable the usage of English in government matters is noble and is indeed heading towards the right direction for the betterment of the state.

And because I support his intentions, in this coming state elections, my vote will then go to the opposition.

The paradox

Let me explain the paradox.

Prospectively, the opposition has little chance to winning the whole elections and gaining full control of the state. PBB, the backbone of Sarawak BN, has a firm grip on the people especially the Malay-Melanau voters as well as majority of Dayak rural votes. So, whether Adenan wins or not is not the matter of contemplation, but by how much and how strong will his grip be on the state legislative assembly?

So, with that in mind, the best way to support what Adenan is doing is to build a strong counterbalance, or a watchdog to make sure Adenan fulfills what he has promised to the people of Sarawak.

There has to be a strong check and balance, if not it will just lead to comfort within the administration. Comfort will then lead to complacency, and complacency will ultimately lead to corruption. All we need is to look back at the time of Taib Mahmud where he had almost full control of the state, to know that it is a real possibility.

Adenan will then need to work harder to prove himself and to leave his legacy after his term. That will only be good for the people. Even if he goes back on his word after the elections, then we will see him for who he really is and we then have a choice to vote him and his government out during the next state elections.

If Najib also decides to cut funding to the state because of the stronger opposition support and the loss of his ‘safe-deposit’, it will then also reveal to us the limits of Adenan’s powers and his need to kow-tow to the federal powers. At the end of the day it’s a win-win situation for the people of Sarawak.

The opposition front have shown over the past years, that when it comes to matters than concern the best interest of the state, they are willing to work trans-partisan even with the state government. This was shown recently when the state legislative assembly unanimously approved a motion to call the state government to be fully committed in safeguarding the interest of the state.

The assembly also before this unanimously approved the motion to demand a greater share of Sarawak’s oil revenues from the federal government, which again received trans-partisan support from both fronts.

So by voting for the opposition doesn’t mean that we do not support Adenan’s policies since they are willing to work trans-partisan when it comes to upholding the interest of the people of Sarawak. In fact, it was the opposition DAP that first proposed for greater autonomy for Sarawak and an equal standing with Malaya in their Bintulu Declaration.

Who is next in line?

As popular and progressive Adenan may be, he has publicly stated he will only be the CM for the next five years. The question we will need to ask will be what is next for the state and most importantly who is next in line? Will the next CM continue what Adenan is doing or will he have his own agenda?

We must therefore vote with the long-term interest of the state in mind and not only then decide to vote and strengthen the opposition. It will be too late, as there will be little control and dissenting power on who will be the next CM. Looking at the current candidates, don’t blame me for not being very optimistic.

Again, as popular Adenan may be today, or as progressive as he may be perceived to be, let’s not forget another leader who started his term as a progressive leader who repealed the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA) and Emergency Ordinance and also spoke up for racial and religious unity and introduced the famous slogan ‘1Malaysia’.

Najib’s popularity was as high as 64 percent before GE13, and look how that turned out. Popularity at the end of the day means ‘nuts’ when it comes to transformation.

Maybe, just maybe, the reason Adenan looks so good is because the other leaders in power are just that bad.

DR KELVIN YII is a parliamentary assistant to Stampin MP Julian Tan.