Why Sarawakians Must Change The State Government
Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived circa 540 - 480 BCE once said that the only real constant is change. Change, for better or for worse, is an unalterable aspect of human life and to reject changes is only at one’s peril. In the context of politics and governance in Sarawak, the Covid.19 pandemic has highlighted how the absence of change in governance in Sarawak has been to the detriment of Sarawakians.
This is not the same as saying that all Sarawakians recognise and acknowledge this sad page in our lives.
When the pandemic first hit Sarawak in March 2020 and the first movement control order (MCO) went into effect on the 18th March 2020, most Sarawakians started to grapple with a reality that never crossed their mind before that. News started filtering in that rice exporting countries like Thailand and Vietnam had started restricting rice exports. Suddenly, Sarawakians were starring at the prospects of rice running out of stocks in the supermarkets and retail shops and the prospects of price increases. As restrictions on movement of people were enforced, businesses, especially those in the small size and medium size category started to suffer. Many had to close down and many jobs were lost. In June 2020, the Sarawak Labour Department reported that there 8151 cases of job lost because of the pandemic and many families, particularly families from the B40 category came down under tremendous financial pressure.
When the number of Covid.19 patients started escalating, the hospital facilities were strained and there were fears that there was going to be insufficient ICU beds and ventilators. Clearly our health and medical system was not fully equipped for a pandemic of this scale and it finally dawned on Sarawakians just how adversely corruption and incompetence, displayed in the still-uncompleted Petra Jaya Hospital and the Sri Aman Hospital can impact on the lives of ordinary Sarawakians.
https://codeblue.galencentre.org/2020/12/28/from-zero-to-2000-inside-malaysias-pandemic-year/
The education system too was severely impacted. Schools, colleges and universities were closed and face-to-face learning suspended. The students who suffered most were the rural based students. Limited or total lack of internet access, electronic devices and teachers who were ill-equipped for the shift to remote teaching combined to result in a near total breakdown in learning for these rural based children. All these despite the boast of the GPS government that they were fully committed to improving internet connectivity for the rural areas in Sarawak.
What has all these to do with the total absence of change in governance in Sarawak?
After the Sarawak state elections in July 1970, Sarawak Alliance (Alliance), SUPP and Parti Pesaka Sarawak (Pesaka) formed a coalition to form the government of Sarawak. Later, Alliance and Pesaka merged to form what is today Parti Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB). PBB and SUPP were the forerunners of Barisan Nasional (BN) in Sarawak. BN was formed in 1973 and registered as a coalition of 9 parties (including PBB and SUPP from Sarawak) in June 1974. BN Sarawak evolved into todays’s Gabungan Parti Sarawak, following the defeat of BN in the GE14 (in May 2018). Since 1969 until today, GPS and its predecessors i.e BN and PBB & SUPP before that, has had an unbroken record of 51 years of governance in Sarawak.
For over half a century, Sarawakians, particularly rural based Sarawakians were systematically and steadily fed a diet of half truths and spins. Schools and clinics are BN’s schools and clinics and if someone so much as dare to think about voting for an opposition candidate in an election, he or she and their immediate family members will immediately suffer the consequences. Sites of development projects were marked with signboards carrying the words Projek Kerajaan Barisan Nasional. Administrative institutions at village level like the ketua kampung or tuai rumah, the penghulu and government departments like JASA, KEMAS and RELA were and still are specialised units in BN’s propaganda machinery. All these were tasked to brainwash and control the rakyat through threats of withholding services. In many places, the ketua kampongs are also the branch/unit heads of BN component parties in the area.
And after 51 years, the brainwashing was complete and BN became so entrenched in our psyche that it became almost impossible to imagine life without BN. Among others, Sarawakians were condition to believe that only BN (now GPS) can bring the developments needed to ensure their well being. While BN was so successful in positioning themselves in the minds of Sarawakians, they were incompetent and ineffective in governance. Not the least among their weaknesses were corrupt practises, incompetence, abuse of power, cronyism and lack of vision.
The problems associated with food security, dilapidated schools, inadequate and ill-equipped medical and health facilities, internet connectivity are already mentioned above. Declining housing affordability, slowing productivity growth, lack of employment opportunities now aggravated by skyrocketing inflation further add to the burden of the rakyat especially those in the rural communities. And the list goes on and on.
The dayaks, after over half a century and despite the best efforts of crusading native rights lawyers, are still struggling to assert their rights over their NCR land. Where is the proverbial spanner in the work in this issue? It is the refusal of the GPS government ( previously the Sarawak’s BN) to amend the Sarawak Land Code to accord the dayaks coded legal rights over their NCR land.
The sum total of all these failures of GPS boils down to just one thing: The interest of the leaders of GPS does not extend beyond their own incumbency. This is their one and only objective as all the financial and other benefits that they and their families, their cronies and all in their gravy train are obsessed with and addicted to cascades from their continuing incumbency. There is very little that the rakyat is suffering from that cannot be traced to GPS’s failure to govern in a competent, accountable, fair and equitable manner. The latest in GPS’s failures to champion the interest of Sarawakians is the failure of the GPS state cabinet (to represent the state government) to pressure the PN federal government to withdraw their appeal on the ‘Allah’ high court decision. A coalition of non-muslims MPs and ADUNs from Sarawak and Sabah representing both sides of the political divides jointly issued a statement urging the federal government to withdrawal the appeal but the Sarawak cabinet was, as usual, silent.
But these failures are masked by widely publicised perception changing projects like the LRT/ART, hydrogen buses, electric buses, Sarawak airline, a state-owned bank, a state-owned telecommunication company, a 5.2 km long bridge (supposed to be finance by the federal government but now to be wholly financed by the Sarawak government) and many more.
For these reasons and more, Sarawakians, in their own long term interest, must seriously consider changing the government in the coming state elections. There is already a viable alternative in the wing, who has proven that they genuinely have the interest of Sarawakians at heart.
