In an ironic twist, the death of Dublin Unting Inggot, the Batang Ai assemblyman who succumbed yesterday after being comatose for nine months, has provided an opening for the redress of an error that owners of Native Customary Rights land among Sarawak’s Dayaks were left to rue since 2000.

The death of Unting, which is from BN component Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), paves the way for a by-election in this state seat in the Sarawak interior which is peopled mainly by the Iban, the majority group in the ethnic mosaic called the Dayak.

In recent years, the Iban, in areas where they are dominant, have been in dispute with logging and oil palm plantation companies over NCR land, an issue that flared up in Sarawak politics in May 2000 when the state assembly passed an amendment to the land code that had the effect of weakening Dayak claims to the NCR land.

Dublin Unting Ingkot Unting ( left ), then secretary-general of Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS, which was deregistered in 2005), did not think it urgent to circulate a legal opinion drawn up by Dayak lawyers Baru Bian and Kilat Beriak that cautioned the eight PBDS members of the assembly against voting for the amendment.

sarawak diverse population percentage breakdown of race 160106 In an historic faux pas that would become the subject of much hand wringing and caustic comment among the tiny Dayak intelligentsia, Unting chided fellow assemblyman, Gabriel Adit Demong who had passed him a note during the debate inquiring about the opinion: “This is not the place to discuss the issue.”

The amendment passed with PBDS’s unwitting support, triggering an often acrimonious aftermath that saw internal ructions between deputy president Daniel Tajem, then Malaysian High Commissioner to New Zealand, and James Masing, a supporter of the amendment.

Then PBDS vice-president Masing was heir presumptive to incumbent president Leo Moggie, attenuated in his federal ministerial job in Kuala Lumpur, the sole one for the Dayaks in the BN. (Moggie’s retirement in 2004 left the community without a minister’s seat at federal level, the first time that has happened since Sarawak’s merger with the federation in 1963).

Will the Dayaks support PKR?

Now Unting’s death throws up an election that will test the electoral allegiance of the community that has historically wavered between opposition parties and the ruling BN.

In recent months the community has been attracted to the agenda espoused by PKR. PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim has electioneered to reportedly large and rapturous crowds in the main towns of the state over the last year.

PKR are expected to field Nicholas Bawin Anggat, whose unsuccessful exertions in registering a successor party to PBDS under the name of the Malaysian Dayak Congress, has inevitably led to his membership in PKR.

PKR’s claims to representing Dayak aspirations in Sarawak will be tested in the Batang Ai by-election.

To be sure, the party had rebounded from the wipeout it suffered in its first foray in the state in the September 2001 elections, to a sole seat win in the May 2006 elections through Dominique Ng in Kuching.

sarawak state seat 2006 breakdown 011208 Last November, Ng was joined in the assembly by Ngemah’s Gabriel Adit, a PBDS leader turned Independent, which brought PKR’s representation to two in the 71-seat assembly.

That number would be up by a digit should PKR’s Bawin come up against Nelson Munjah, the favoured candidate of Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu, the main Dayak powerbroker in the Parti Persaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), the dominant party in the Sarawak BN coalition.

Munjah, an Iban district officer in Lubuk Antu, the parliamentary constituency in which Batang Ai is located, is from Jabu’s state seat of Betong. Hence he will be viewed as an outsider, a disadvantage in the parochial politics of Sarawak’s interior.

However, if the BN candidate is Naga Anak Alam, secretary to the late Unting and an Iban native of Lubuk Antu, the tussle will be close.

Campaign war chest a decisive factor

Bawin, 50, also an Iban native of Lubuk Antu, would be hard to beat but in this constituency crisscrossed by three rivers on the banks of which are located some 100 Iban longhouses, logistics and a big campaign chest, the BN’s trump card, are decisive factors.

Despite lacking funds and personnel in the May 2006 state election, Bawin, a Mara business studies graduate, contesting under the banner of Sarawak National Party (Snap), polled a respectable 2,489 votes to Unting’s 3,295.

batang air state seat 240209 With the more formidable resources of PKR at his command, Bawin would be a stronger contender in the upcoming by-election than he was in the 2006 poll.

More certainly, his years as deputy president of the Majlis Adat Istiadat (Council of Dayak Customs and Rights) from 1992 to 2005 had gained him eminence in the community as an exponent of Dayak traditions and claims, especially in matters pertaining to NCR land.

His tenure in the Majlis came to an abrupt end after exertions on behalf of his community brought him into dispute with his employer, the Chief Minister’s Office, where the real centre of political gravity in the state lies.

That is why many reckon that reverberations from a PKR victory in Batang Ai will sweep across the political landscape, rendering the next state election, widely expected to be held much earlier than its due date in May 2011, a contest of pivotal importance to Sarawak.