Why is there no Chinese Deputy Chief Minister appointed?

Nanyang Siang Pau, May 16^th 2016.

 

In the recent Sarawak state election, the internal conflicts of the Opposition weakened their election strategy until they caused themselves a major defeat. Contrarily, Barisan Nasional riding on Adenan’s fever won a landslide victory.

 

Although SUPP faced internal split, it also improved compared to their previous achievement with the Chinese voters swinging back to Barisan Nasional. SUPP did not win many seats but at least it won back some traditional strongholds.

 

At present the Chief Minister of Sarawak Adenan broke his promise. Before the state election, he promised the voters to appoint a Chinese Deputy Chief Minister if they voted for SUPP in the state election. After the victory, he twisted his words that all Chinese must vote for SUPP before a Deputy Chief Minister of Chinese origin could be appointed. It contradicted to what he had said earlier and it amounted to an act of not honouring his promise.

 

If one analyses the situation deeply, the appointment of a Chinese Deputy Chief Minister is not a big issue.

 

In Sarawak SUPP is regarded as MCA which represents the Malaysian Chinese. In fact this assumption is not true. SUPP is a Chinese based party similar to DAP and its composition of indigenous members is much better and bigger than DAP.

 

SUPP is facing an internal split

 

In the last election SUPP only managed to retain six seats. Four of its seats were won by their indigenous representatives. Even if the state government wants to appoint a deputy Chief Minister from SUPP, it may not be represented by a Chinese.

 

In the recent state election, SUPP was facing an internal split and this time the candidates for the state election were mainly Chinese candidates. SUPP won seven seats and one of the seats was won by a former representative of indigenous origin.

 

UPP is a splinter group of SUPP led by Wong Soon Koh and former SUPP representatives from indigenous people. The five BN direct candidates inclusive of Wong, three other former lawmakers of indigenous people and Tiong Tai King won their seats respectively. If SUPP and UPP are united, they will have a total of 12 seats.

 

If SUPP was the only representative put forward in the election campaign, it could only win one extra seat.

 

The media highlighted the news of SUPP, UPP and the SPDP splinter group TERAS and totally forgotten about PRS. PRS is a Dayak based political party which nominated eleven Dayak candidates and won all their eleven seats. They did better than the last election with three additional seats which included the seat won by their President James Masing.

 

Fear to offend other members of Barisan Nasional

 

After the last state election, SUPP and SPDP faced internal trouble. The prominent leaders from both parties inclusive of the former President of SPDP William Mawan formed TERAS and Wong Soon Koh formed UPP. The two splinter groups became Barisan National direct candidates and thus weakened their own original parties. PRS emerged as the victor under the scenario of Barisan in-fighting among the member parties.

 

Adenan is not stupid knowing his PBB is a very strong party. The quota for two deputy Chief Ministers out of three is assured and the last vacancy of a deputy Chief Minister is also commonly known as the “Chinese Deputy Chief Minister” post. SUPP is not performing very well whereas PRS won a 100% victory so it is a risk to offend the other party if SUPP is awarded the post of a Deputy Chief Minister.

 

It is not quite true to regard Adenan as eating his words because the Chinese are not hard up for the Deputy Chief Minister post. If the Chinese are really serious for the post, won’t SUPP merge with other parties before negotiating with Adenan?