JULY 12 — Currently in his 32nd straight year in office as the chief minister of Sarawak, allegedly one of the richest men in the country, recently married to a woman decades younger than him, while fending off the claims of a recalcitrant former daughter-in-law, a resurgent opposition and global allegations of corruption is Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, 77.
In 2011, under pressure from the national Barisan Nasional (BN) leadership during elections to the Sarawak assembly, he promised to step down in two or three years’ time. Completing a clean sweep of the seats contested by his party, PBB, he has emerged as a kingmaker on the national scene after GE13.
Not only has he showed that any decisions on his political future will be made solely by him, he is now able to brazenly cock a snook at the naughty MACC as well as the anti-natural resource exploitation NGO, Global Witness, with BN only able to look on in silence.
Elegantly proving the point is the request by MACC for documents relating to the CM’s property holdings from an opposition MP despite two years of MACC investigations by a 10-member task force into his assets.
In addition, illustrating his complete control over the official state machinery, he is not only able to bar one of his most vocal critics, Claire Rewcastle Brown, from entering Sarawak to defend herself in a libel case centring around corruption in the state, but also to bar her lawyer, a Malaysian, from leaving the country!
In fact, pretty much anybody earning his displeasure from Semenanjung or abroad can forget about getting access to the state.
How does he do it? The key to understanding his longevity lies in the trust placed in him by his electorate. Why are Sarawak voters willing to give him an electoral mandate time after time, given that despite being the third-largest state economy by GDP, Sarawak lags the rest of the country on a slew of social development indices?
For instance, according to the Social Statistics Bulletin 2012, the state has only seven rural clinics compared to the 242 in Pahang, one-third its size. The Labour Force Survey Report Malaysia 2010 shows that Sarawak has the second-highest number of workers in the labour force with no formal education and there are 242,000 Sarawakian workers with only primary education, who account for 23 per cent of the labour force of Sarawak.
The answer may lie in precisely these indices, particularly for the 52 per cent of Sarawak that is rural. With relatively poor access to health, education, infrastructure and connectivity, these areas could be argued are living in the absence of a government as is commonly understood.
In an environment absent of any politically competitive yardstick, whatever services or cash aid are delivered by the government would be akin to an unexpected windfall. In those circumstances, a vote in exchange for such largesse would not seem like an unequal exchange.
The drivers for support in urban areas, though less overwhelming than in the past, may have to do with notions of Sarawakian autonomy from Peninsular Malaysia, and by extension, peninsular politicians.
The more educated, affluent and therefore better travelled populace feels the differences in allocation of resources between the peninsula and Sarawak despite the huge oil and timber revenues collected by the federal government from the state.
More significant probably is the perceived slight of being ignored in most conversations about the future of Malaysia and the general lack of interest shown in the peninsula towards east Malaysia.
Also, whatever be the national or international criticisms hurled at him, the CM has been able to produce a society where most of the social divisions present in the peninsula are absent, racial and religious harmony prevails and investor interest remains strong.
Given this perception, it is not unreasonable to expect the people of Sarawak to prefer their strongman, warts and all, who can challenge the might of the nation over any peninsular alternative.
All in all, expect the master of traditional politics Pak Uban to go on his own terms because the winds of change, so strong currently in the peninsula, are not likely to pick up steam anytime soon.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
