As far as the Sarawak DAP is concerned, the Pakatan Rakyat coalition in the state was dead months ago when the party decided to pull the plugs on all cooperation with their partners, PKR and PAS.
Before all the brouhaha that followed PAS’s motion to cut ties with DAP, the state DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen had on March 27 already announced the decision to quit the state-level pact over the insistence by the Islamist party on implementing hudud in Kelantan.
On Wednesday, he said state PKR leaders must accept that PR is dead not only in Sarawak but also nationally, as he sent feelers to have a new cooperation comprising only DAP and PKR.
Chong said the PAS’s continuous breach of the PR Common Policy Framework, culminating in the motion to sever ties with DAP in its Muktamar had practically put an end to the coalition.
He said a new coalition would not be feasible if PKR continue to cooperate and work with Sarawak PAS, which is considered a “mosquito party” and had hardly made any political impact since entering the state a few years ago.
Chong said DAP would not work with PKR if the party continues to cooperate with PAS.
“It would be a ridiculous scenario for Sarawak DAP to sever ties with PAS and yet work with PKR who is working with PAS. Only an opportunistic party will put itself in such a position.
“I urge PKR to sever ties with PAS so that we may be able to work together to fight Barisan Nasional,” the Bandar Kuching MP and Kota Sentosa assemblyman was quoted as saying.
To date, the state PKR has yet to cut ties with PAS and so far also ignored DAP’s proposal, probably hoping that a last-minute bout of sanity could prevail like in the last general elections, when national PR leaders intervened and brokered the bitter seat row between DAP and PKR.
Last week, PKR state chairman Baru Bian had admitted both parties are set to sit down to discuss the latest political situation and future of the coalition.
Political analyst Professor James Chin (pic, right) agreed that a similar intervention could happen again at this coming state election.
“Something could happen,” Chin, of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania, said.
“National opposition leaders like PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, DAP’s senior leader Lim Kit Siang and his secretary-general son Guan Eng, could again step in and fashion some kind of a coalition of convenience like they did when they brokered over the seat row in the general election to stop the opposition rot and stop the Barisan Nasional (BN) onslaught”.
Chin, however, said all these would be an exercise of futility.
“No matter what the opposition does, whether they have a makeshift partnership, a loose coalition of some kind or whatever they could conjure up, they would still not stop the Sarawak Barisan Nasional winning big.”
Chin is also of the opinion that with or without a coalition, DAP are strong enough to retain all the 12 Chinese seats they won in the 2011 polls.
The Sarawak state legislative assembly has 71 seats, not counting the 12 new seats that are still embroiled in a legal dispute.
In the 2011 election, PKR won three seats, an Independent won one with the BN winning 55.
Chin said even if the national leaders could thrash out a coalition between DAP and PKR for the state election, the enmity between Chong and Baru would just mar any kind of working relationship.
“Chong and Baru are no longer on talking terms, an enmity that was the result of the quarrel over seats in the general election.
“Even more so now with Baru accusing Chong of trying to grab ‘PKR seats’ – seats PKR had contested in before, especially the Dayak seats.”
The alleged seat grab had been blamed on DAP’s “Impian Sarawak” (Sarawak dream) project – to break out of Chinese-majority seats into Dayak-majority areas in an attempt to win more seats and eventually grab the reins of power.
One of the reasons DAP had allegedly given, for the seat allocation talks in the last general election, to contest in seats where PKR had staked their claim, was that PKR had failed to make any impression after so many attempts.
A young Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) leader Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah aptly described the situation when he said “DAP Sarawak has all along not looked highly at its partners whom they seem to treat as riding on them for support”.
Karim, who is also the assistant minister of Social Development was quoted by the local daily The Borneo Post last week as saying that “DAP always feels that state seats like Batu Lintang or parliamentary seats like Miri are won by PKR on DAP’s support and now is their opportunity to take them back.
“Further, DAP has its own programme for bumiputera majority areas as they don’t see bumi leaders in PKR and PAS as capable and good enough,” he was also quoted as saying.
Chin said whatever happens, “with or without a coalition”, Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem “will win big” in the state election which must be called before June next year.
“There’s just no hope for the opposition,” he added. – June 21, 2015.
It seems that the so-called “progressives” in PAS are going to form a new religious party but with a more liberal format.
If they still insisted on a religious party, then these so-called progressives are not very progressive!!!
And they are not even smart.
If they are, they should not allow religion in their new party or party’s name, as sooner or later, some overzealous members will try to turn this new party into a full fledged religious party and everything will be back to square one!!!!
Perhaps the DAP should make them aware of this inherent danger, that religion and politics don’t mix!!!