Is Batang Ai a Masing-Sng proxy fight?

Batang Ai, come April 7, promises to ‘degenerate’ into a proxy fight, between PRS president James Masing and his former estranged deputy Sng Chee Hua.

PRS ‘s Malcolm Mussen squares off with Jawah Gerang, a five-term winner in Lubok Antu, who is standing on a PKR ticket after being in the political wilderness for a spell.

“Jawah is Sng’s Iban fighting cock (ayam sabong). PKR is not in the picture at all,” said PRS secretary-general Wilfred Nissom who expressed disappoi ntment at the missed opportunity to take on the Peninsula-based party which has been making waves in the state in recent months.

“If this line - ayam sabong - is pursued, there’s no way that Jawah can win. We don’t even have to use our ‘Sarawak for Sarawakians’ theme. The ex-PBDS members who are not with PRS will not vote for Jawah either because of Sng.”

“PBDS members have bitter memories of Sng’s role in the deregistration of their party - the only one to have taken on the might of the BN as an opposition and won.”

Jawah’s favourite song is said to be “Oh, what a friend we have in Sng”, sung to the tune of “Oh, what a friend we have in Jesus”. PRS members even have the lyrics all ready for the campaign trail in Batang Ai.

Pain in the neck

Nissom believes “all the other issues in Batang Ai will become irrelevant for the moment”. He thinks that it would be better for PKR to skip Batang Ai altogether this time and let Masing and Sng sort each other out once and for all, “unless the party drops Jawah and finds someone else more credible”.

Another possible PKR candidate, Nicholas Bawin, has been appointed the party’s director of operations (Elections). It is understood that BN is wooing him and has asked him to name his “price”. This has thrown a spanner in the works.

Masing sees Batang Ai as more than his proxy fight with Sng.”People are getting this wrong. It’s Sng vs Dayaks. Sng has been a pain in the neck for the Dayak community,” said Masing in a brief comment. “Jawah is actually now known as Jawah Sng anak Gerang. This message is going out to everybody.” (Photo: Masing, Sng in happier PRS days)

This is akin to the effect of having the entire Dayak nation up in arms against their politics being compromised by money concerns at their expense.

Jawah’s people are hitting back at this by describing Malcolm as Malcolm Mussen Jabu anak Lamoh, “a PBB man in PRS shirt but Masing is putting up a brave front on this. Mussen will never listen to Masing. He takes his orders from Jabu. During the nine months when Dublin Unting - was lying comatose, Jabu and Mussen ran the service centre in Batang Ai, not PRS.”

Most PRS members and leaders beg to differ with Masing on his Sng vs Dayak theory and see Batang Ai as the party chief vs Sng “since the Dayaks are much bigger than Sng”.

There is no love lost between Masing and Sng who besides being blamed for the deregistration go PBDS in 2004 has also become the scapegoat for the near deregistration with PRS after his son, Larry Sng, claimed to be the rightful president of the Dayak-based party.

The partyless Larry still continues as an assistant minister in Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud’s cabinet. Larry’s father-in-law, construction magnate Ting Pek Kiing, is a known business associate of the Taib family.

Of the estimated 110,000 PBDS members, only 20,000 have since joined PRS - split between Masing and the Larry Sng faction - while the rest have gravitated towards PKR after their application to form the Malaysian Dayak Congress (MDC) was twice rejected by the Registrar of Societies on “national security” grounds.

'Don't treat us as fools'

Opposition Leader and PKR advisor Anwar Ibrahim was furious that his plans for Batang Ai were coming awry with the PRS line that the by-election was a proxy fight. “Be positive. Don’t treat us as fools. Thank you,” went a terse text message from him.

Anwar doesn’t think that “being positive would be difficult even if Jawah is portrayed as Sng’s ayam sabong in Batang Ai”.

“We determine the agenda, not them,” went a second text message from Anwar before lapsing into ‘radio silence’.

Nissom was happy with the way the campaign promises to shape up in Batang Ai. “That’s the way – Masing vs Sng – that it’s going to be in Batang Ai,” said Nissom brimming with confidence. “It’s good for us that Anwar, as usual, can be a stubborn fellow sometimes. In fact, we prefer to face Jawah and not Nicholas Bawin. Now, he’s (Anwar) already rattled by our campaign line.”

PKR vice-president and special representative for Sarawak, Jeffrey Kitingan, who had earlier recommended Bawin as the party’s candidate, “couldn’t agree more” that Jawah faces an uphill task in Batang Ai.

“Sng is a problem just as he has been in the other parties where he has been involved. Jawah has to distance himself from Sng for his own good and that of the party. We are not a party to collect projects,” said Jeffrey.

Another point against Jawah’s candidacy in Batang Ai is Masing’s oft-repeated charges that he (Jawah) is responsible for the still unresolved problem of compensation to those affected by the building of the Batang Ai dam. Masing has his own skeletons in Bakun.

Green activist, lawyer and ex-Baram MP Harison Ngau Laing, who recently joined PKR after a two-year courtship, confesses that he’s at a loss to figure out how Anwar makes his decisions.

“Anwar made up his mind on Jawah long before he visited Kuching and Batang Ai,” said Laing. “All this talk about consulting with the people of Batang Ai is the work of the media. Of course, all of us did tell Anwar how we felt about the candidacy for Batang Ai. No one in the party, except Sng, supports Jawah Gerang.”

Laing is perplexed over Sng’s actual role in the party since he doesn’t seem to be a member”. “What I do know is that at one time, he was negotiating with the party leadership to admit his son but he wanted quite a high party post for him,” said Laing. “Nothing came out of it because we were all against it. How can we accept this small boy lording over us.”

“Many people are convinced that Sng is Taib’s (Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud) Trojan horse in PKR, just as he has been in PBDS and PRS.”

Laing thinks that Jawah will distance himself from Sng - “a bad smell that follows the Dayaks everywhere” - for at least the moment.

Apparently, Sng himself has not been seen in public with PKR leaders of late although he picked up the tab or most of it for the party’s recent public dinner functions in Kuching, Bintulu, Sibu and Miri. It is believed that he meets from time to time with Anwar secretly in Peninsular Malaysia to lobby for his family’s interests in Dayak politics.

“Anwar might be calling in his old favours and debts,” said Laing. “Sng collected a lot of government projects from Anwar when he was in Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister in return for financing political party activities.”

Laing sees the lack of access to water transport and shortage of campaign funds as the other main problems dogging the opposition campaign in Batang Ai.

“We have talked to the boat men along the Batang Ai and on the lake - a vast inland sea - but you can never tell what will happen at the last minute,” said Laing. “The BN might come in and offer the boat men much more than what we have offered or contract everybody even if they are not using them. It will be extremely difficult without water transport. The BN have all the choppers too and are very mobile.”