Awang Abdillah
During the Mahathir reign, Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud had a free reign and in return he contributed millions to ensure Mahathir’s victories. What Chief Minister Taib Mahmud has been doing as the Sarawak state leader is contrary to the people’s true aspirations.
The projects and developments are mainly inter-connected with his politics of deception and money.
As such, these projects and developments are designed to keep him in power rather than for the well-being and betterment of the economy and people.
Let us examine how Taib’s ploys enable him to hold on to power:
Deception politics
Both former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Taib believe in the doctrine of deception.
Deception tactics involve make-believe propaganda and diversion of focus aimed at changing the mindset of the people in their favour.
Taib and Mahathir both have faith and trust in such a ploy that will produce the desired psychological effects, which is to convince the listeners through false information.
The two believe that if one continuously tells lies to someone, eventually the psyche of the listener will give way and accept them as true.
Furthermore to ordinary people, it is difficult for them to prove otherwise because the relevant information is not accessible to the general public.
However, there are many honest and intelligent people around who do not buy such stories outright but double-check or seek a second opinion.
Hence, the politics of exposure is necessary to counter-balance the evils of politics of deception.
Money politics
Taib has allocated substantial funds from the money he has accumulated over the years, for the following covert operations:
(a) To form power base:
For every state and general elections, Taib will ensure that all the Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB) seats are won through money politics with the exception of a few genuine ones.
He provides sufficient funds to cover all the illegal and illicit political activities during a state election to ensure total victory, which then forms his political power base in the state.
With the biggest number of seats won among the component BN parties,Taib can then dictate his terms to them.
He and his party stalwarts have built a network of die-hard voters who number more than half of the total voters in each constituency.
They know each one of the voters in detail. You may say these voters are the “loyal business customers” during the elections.
These hardcore voters will vote for PBB candidates no matter who or what kind of candidates the party chooses.
This is the typical mentality of the die-hard voters in many PBB areas (not all).
So long as they receive the corrupt money plus other goodies and the candidate (whoever he is) is using the “dacing” symbol, then he is accepted.
They are already addicted to the election money and goodies and are willing to sell their votes to this regular distributor of the “haram” money.
We may compare the loyal supporters in the PBB constituencies to the drug addicts who have no moral values and independent thinking.
This is how the majority of PBB leaders train their people contrary to the true spirit of true democracy, the rule of law and human capital development.
This is unlike the Chinese voters who decide on their own independent rational thinking the choice of a candidate to be voted in.
Even the non-Malay Bumiputera voters (Iban, Bidayuh and Orang Ulu) in the rural areas are not as naïve as the Malay and Melanau voters.
The non-Malay Bumiputera voters have been betrayed by their own leaders who are cowed or bought over by Taib , and the federal government is in cahoots with Taib to threaten or deny them development projects if they choose the opposition like what had happened to Sabah under the opposition rule.
Personal ‘standby’ banker
(b) To feed the corrupt federal Umno leaders:
During the Mahathir reign, Taib had a field day. He was free to run the state on his terms as long as they shared the loot.
Taib paid millions to finance the Mahathir faction to ensure he would win in Umno party elections.
For the general election, Taib gave millions to Mahathir to ensure Umno-BN’s victories.
Furthermore, Taib acted as a standby personal banker to the ex-premier whenever he needed money for his sons or cronies’ business needs.
In return, Mahathir not only sanctioned Taib’s corrupt act, but would protect him and his gang of thieves from the long arm of the law.
Hence, for the last 30 years till today Taib continues to plunder the state resources without interference from the federal government.
The Sarawak people demand that Mahathir, the promoter and protector of Taib’ corrupt practices, own up to his role and to disclose how much Taib had paid him all these years.
This will explain why, despite hundreds of reports backed up by evidence against Taib, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission will not act simply because the thief is literally feeding the dog’s master.
By so doing, Taib successfully sealed his relationship with the elite Umno leaders and kept himself safe from the onslaught of the opposition in the state.
Taib fears a united Dayak
(c) To break up Dayak based parties:
In Sarawak politics no race has the absolute majority numbers in the State Legislative Assembly though the Dayak-based parties hold the biggest number.
PBB has been leading the state government since the 1970s, and hence it is wary of the SUPP and the Dayak parties uniting to form a government.
What Taib fears most is the Dayak parties merging as a single party that will pose a serious threat to his own party.
Hence, Taib is always on the look-out for any moves by the Dayak parties in that direction. From 1970s till today, Taib’s targeting strategy is to break up these parties. Over the years he’s found the job harder to do.
In the 10th state election in 2011, the reliable partner SUPP (Sarawak United People’s Party) lost 13 seats to DAP and PKR. Though the Barisan Nasional won, Taib finds himself in an uneasy partnership with Pesaka, SPDP (Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party) and PRS (Parti Rakyat Sarawak).
Furthermore, he needs to implement his succession plan soonest possible. Apart from Umno-BN facing a serious big challenge in the coming 13th general election, Taib has to contend with the pressure piling on him to quit and his age.
But he cannot quit according to the federal terms. He has to protect his own interests first, meaning he has to do it his way, which is a hard one.
Taib’s priority now is to pass the chief minister’s post to his most trusted aide to protect his personal interests.
Hence, he has to continue the job of breaking up the Dayak parties that pose a challenge to his power and plans even though they are in BN.
But what is happening now is that after he breaks up one Dayak party, another mushrooms and new problems arise.
Awang Abdillah is a political analyst, writer and FMT columnist
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