COMMENT Speculation has inevitably swirled around Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem's qualified support , aired in the state legislature on Wednesday, for Najib Abdul Razak as prime minister and BN chief.

It was nicely ambiguous and could be interpreted to suit the inclinations of by both sceptics and supporters of the CM.

The former would contend Adenan's hedged endorsement is not worth the vapour it made while the latter will see it as notice from Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) that the BN supremo has PBB's endorsement but it's not a blank cheque.

DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang has tried to parse Adenan's statement; he finds telltale signs of a quaver.

But, as Lim goes on to argue, since investigative agencies find it difficult to put the PM on the carpet, Adenan's conditional-seeming support is as good as a full endorsement for Najib to stay on as BN chair.

Still, as Lim admits, Adenan is about the only BN component party leader to publicly hedge his bets on Najib's future.

The rest of the BN component party leaders are wedded to the proposition that Najib will stay as PM because he has done no wrong, at least not anything provably wrong.

Their umbilical cords are tied to Umno; they cannot stand sans life support from the dominant Malay party.

This is not the case with PBB which has managed to keep Umno out of Sarawak and for good measure.

Sarawakians gratefully acknowledge, albeit discreetly, that Adenan's predecessor, Abdul Taib Mahmud, and now the current CM himself have safeguarded their interests by keeping interloper Umno at bay, unlike Sabah which Sarawakians see as hopelessly entangled in the coils of Umno's extractive politics after having allowed the folly of Umno's entry two decades ago.

A sensible consideration

Given that Adenan, since becoming chief minister in March last year, has affirmed and adopted a raft of measures and policies that are closer to those of the federal opposition than they are to Umno's, it's sensible for DAP and PKR to consider enlisting in a Sarawak BN Plus government.

This is more so when one considers the political configurations emerging on the peninsula, particularly Najib's wooing of PAS - a courtship that's being pursued with more ardour after the Umno president succeeded in getting his party to march single file behind him.

All the parties in Sarawak, both in BN and the opposition, regard PAS with unease, if not repugnance.

PAS knows that Umno, in electing to back a president as saddled with problems as grave as Najib's, needs them more than they need the nationalist party.

The Islamist party is opting to play fast and loose with Najib's overture: they will not commit to full collaboration, as a hedge against sinking with Umno should Najib be caught out on the 1MDB imbroglio, but they will not spurn the offer, on grounds that Islamic rectitude required they accept a proffer from fellow Muslims.

With Adenan having staked out positions - on the 'Allah' issue, on non-Malay contributions to the country's economic development, on recognition of the United Examinations Certificate, on placing English on par with the national language, on a return to the autonomy grants embedded in the 1963 Malaysia Agreement, and on raising the state's oil royalty from five to 20 percent - that are closer to the opposition's, especially the DAP, than to Umno, the gap between him and them is not much.

Hence, DAP - and if it is willing, PKR - should keep ahead of the looming political configurations on the peninsula, by making common cause with an Adenan-steered Sarawak BN.

In the fluid dynamics unleashed by a survival-seeking prime minister, and the uncertainties that PKR has willed on the opposition through courting a flip-flopping PAS, a tie-up in Sarawak between a ruling coalition led by a progressive CM and the main parties in the opposition, there is a sensible hedge against rude surprises that a Umno-PAS pact may well bode.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.