THE optics seem reassuring enough. Local newspapers in Sarawak splashed on the front page a photograph of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad sitting down on Dec 16 in his expansive Putrajaya office with the chief ministers of Sarawak and Sabah, Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Abang Openg and Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal, respectively.
If a picture says a thousand words, the photograph of the tripartite Putrajaya tête-à-tête should go some ways to mollify sentiments in the two states about the restoration of their status within the Malaysian federation and their rights as spelt out in the Malaysia Agreement 1963.
However, these are unusual political times. All three heads of government at
the meeting may be familiar faces. But Dr Mahathir heads a federal government that is still struggling with coherence issues. And Abang Johari and Shafie head state governments respectively in opposition to and nominally tied to the federal ruling coalition.
Voices, meanwhile, are increasingly being raised publicly in both states to make their new-found political “independence” formal.
Whatever may be the political differences between either state and Putrajaya (and these are not to be trifled with, of course), one thing that can be said
with some certainty: it is not in the political interest of any of the three top leaders to let popular political sentiments in Sarawak and Sabah drift any further. Changed powers dynamics aside, this is the most fundamental matter they share in common.
So, if the three leaders have their respective state and overall national interests uppermost in their minds, they
should and must find common cause soonest.
Among the most contentious issues between the federal and state governments are that relating to petroleum royalties and a “fairer” take by Sarawak and Sabah of national revenues. These have mostly been left hanging and unresolved for far too long. The longer they fester, the likelier the national fabric will tear.
Even the latest iteration of these issues — the thinking-aloud by the prime minister about the possibility of oil-producing states taking stakes in Petronas — risks turning into a political football as Sarawak Pakatan Harapan chairman Chong Chieng Jen publicly urged support for such a
possibility while the Sarawak Chief Minister’s Office countered with a statement that it was awaiting a concrete federal offer.
Perhaps the Sarawak government should have gone public in welcoming the idea in principle and suggest it will seriously consider any federal proposal benefiting it rather than merely hedging its bets as to whether to accept or reject the very idea only after sighting something firmer and official?
All this raises questions if the ongoing negotiations over these related issues between Putrajaya and the two states are happening in any good faith or if they are in any danger of falling victim to political posturing by one or all parties involved.
The nation — not least Sarawak
and Sabah — deserves a lot better than this!
Enough of all the political brinksmanship. State politicians have spent too much time — either through inept strategising, wasting of all-important negotiating leverage or lacking of any coherent overall game-plan — only to have led us to such a perilous juncture we are now at.
Some or all of the above have led to the self-defeating activation of the “nuclear” option: suing Petronas for non-payment of Sarawak’s sales tax on petroleum and petroleum products. The well is thus poisoned and a cloud hangs over the federal-state negotiating process. Apportioning blame solves nothing.
As the powers that be (at both the federal and state levels) ponder the way forward,
it is useful also to bear in mind the
history of the state-federal political equation.
It was the late Tun Abang Haji Openg, then Sarawak governor (and father to Abang Johari), who triggered the Sarawak constitutional crisis of 1965-1966 when he dismissed the then chief minister, the late Tan Sri Stephen Kalong Ningkan. The deepening crisis was only resolved
with the federal imposition of an emergency.
Conspiracy theorists in the state who find any opportunity to play the victimhood card till today blame the episode squarely on a federal-hatched political plot. Re-living such a conspiracy now naturally fits into the agenda peddled by some political quarters that see a sinister federal hand in every state political twist and turn.
Both current state and federal leaders must be careful not to feed into such political narratives wittingly or otherwise. The best insurance against this will be for all concerned to summon the political will to expeditiously conclude the ongoing federal-state negotiations.
The writer views developments in the nation, the region and the wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times