KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 2 — Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem struck a “delicate balance” by distancing his administration from Putrajaya’s political issues but not enough to cut off ties completely from the federal government, analysts said today.

Dr Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said Adenan’s current tactic of playing along with popular sentiment certainly worked out as his popularity among his people were  ”enhanced”.

“Adenan is playing a very delicate game — distancing the Sarawak regime just enough from central so as not to be too much associated with the troubles currently besieging the central, while not totally snapping the central-state relations, so as to continue to avail Sarawak of federal largesse,” he told Malay Mail Online.

Meanwhile, CEO of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) Wan Saiful Wan Jan said Adenan is merely preparing for both the Sarawak state election and the 14th general election with his current strategy of appealing to political parties from both sides.

“If Umno is to lose more seats in Peninsular and Pakatan Harapan to win more, this will open up possibilities for Adenan,” IDEAS’ chief executive said.

“He can still retain seats for his party in Sarawak. He will win regardless of who win at the federal level.”

But independent analyst Khoo Kay Peng and Dr Lim Teck Ghee of the Centre for Policy Initiatives (CPI) were more sceptical of the Sarawak Chief Minister with the former noted that Adenan has only offered verbal promises so far.

“Please do not mistake it as anti-Putrajaya, both Najib and Adenan have the same objective which is to win the state election decisively. If Sarawak is anti— Putrajaya then they would have spoken up against excesses like 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad),” Khoo said.

Lim said that Adenan clearly understood the current public sentiment towards Putrajaya following several controversies such as the 1MDB scandal and his recent words were an attempt to “douse this anti-establishment sentiment” by supporting unity efforts championed by the opposition in Sarawak.

Last year, Adenan was praised for making English as the second official language in Sarawak and for allowing non-Muslims to use the Arabic word “Allah” when referring to their God.