Even as new Sarawak Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Abang Openg brought a measure of political calm following the expected minor turbulence precipitated by the sudden demise of Tan Sri Adenan Satem by keeping a status-quo state cabinet, speculations and clamour go unabated about an inevitable reshuffle to come.
In particular, many will watch, and state Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties will eye who (if anyone) will fill the slot of deputy chief minister vacated by Abang Johari himself.
Ever since the convincing gains made by the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) in the state election last year, public pressure has built for its president, Senator Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian, to assume the position of first deputy chief minister that had traditionally been the party’s since it helped form the state government, which pre-dated BN, in 1970.
SUPP lost that position when its then president, Tan Sri Dr George Chan, lost his state assembly seat in the state election of 2011 that also saw the party suffer its most severe electoral setback ever.
Dr Chan’s successor as party president, Tan Sri Peter Chin, was never a state assemblyman and therefore, ineligible for consideration as deputy chief minister. Under his brief watch as president, he failed to heal a party rift led by Datuk Seri Wong Soon Koh. Wong later formed the breakaway United People’s Party (UPP) composed of SUPP malcontents.
With that, SUPP’s hopes of ever retaining its position as the titular No. 2 in the state government seemed to have faded into oblivion.
Hopes have now been revived as SUPP’s political fortunes make a turnaround. Riding on the coat-tails of the late Adenan, whose saccharin-coated public pronouncements and policy moves endeared him especially to the state’s Chinese community, and with a political novice in Sim as president, the party credibly clawed back lost political ground from the opposition despite the challenge posed by UPP in last year’s state election.
Adenan rewarded SUPP after the election by appointing Dr Sim the minister of local government, but resisted awarding the SUPP president the largely symbolic title of deputy chief minister. That has not stilled a groundswell within the Chinese community for SUPP to reclaim what it obviously views as belonging to the party by tradition.
Abang Johari has inherited that groundswell. Among the latest to add to the clamour for Dr Sim to be made deputy chief minister was Datuk Dr Ngu Piew Seng, president of the Federation of Foochow Associations of Sarawak.
By tradition, Sarawak under the BN has three deputy chief ministers. Besides the one customarily filled by a Chinese leader from SUPP (Dr Sim’s late father, Tan Sri Sim Kheng Hong, had held that post for some years), the two others would be Iban leaders. The leader of the Pesaka wing of Parti Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB) has always been another deputy chief minister. The third would go to the leader of another state BN party.
Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas is the incumbent PBB deputy chief minister. Tan Sri Dr James Masing, president of Parti Rakyat Sarawak, only managed to secure the third slot after it had stayed vacant for some years as first, the Sarawak National Party, and then Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak — both having previously filled the slot — went through internal party turmoil.
The late Adenan broke that political tradition last year when, instead of appointing Dr Sim a deputy chief minister, he handed the slot to Abang Johari. The open question now is whether the new chief minister will revert to tradition.
There is, of course, much to commend the mostly pure symbolism of having deputy chief ministers representing sizable communities in Sarawak. Moreover, the misgivings that arose about the heavy political preponderance of PBB in the state government when Adenan unveiled his new cabinet last year have not dissipated.
While it can no doubt be argued that PBB’s preponderance in the state government reflects political realities, appearance in a multi-racial Sarawak still matters and therefore the symbolic value of having deputy chief ministers reflecting the state’s rainbow mix of communities should not be underestimated.
That said, Abang Johari may also want to hold on to the carrot of appointing a Chinese deputy chief minister for a while longer in hopes that it may act as a spur for SUPP to make another stab at political reconciliation with UPP. The SUPP-UPP split remains an open sore eating into the enviable unity and stability which have been the bedrock of BN rule.
John Teo views developments in the nation, the region and the wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak