As one Human capitaldevelopment consultant rightly puts it every society needs minimum consensus,more so in a developing state like Sarawakwith its diverse ethnic and religious groups and other different backgrounds.Sarawak, unlike Semenanjung Malaysia,has about 30 ethnic groups, each with its own custom and tradition andreligious belief; none of them can form a majority without working together.
This was amplydemonstrated in Sarawak’s first indirectelections or three-tier system elections in the early 60s. Although PartiBerjasa secured biggest number of councilors but the party could not producethe majority in the State legislative Assembly. In other words, the party, withthe biggest number of councilors, could not translate them into a majority inthe State Legislative Assembly and form an independent state government. Worse, some moreestablished parties tried to secure the majority using their own ways ofinterpreting the Constitution and situation; the state was plunged into crisisbecause of that.
Obviously, thepolitical system then was not good enough for Sarawakto necessitate leaders in Party Berjasa and Party Negara to start talking aboutthe merger with the realization that they could never deliver the promises thatthey had made to the people on their own. The results of the elections did not give a clear voice.
Then Party Negarawas influential in First and Second divisions, now Kuching and Samarahandivisions and Sri Aman and Betong divisions respectively and Parti Berjasa inthe rest of Sarawak. After three years of discussions, Berjasaand Parti Negara merged to become one party called Party Bumiputra. That heralded the beginning of a new era inthe arduous task to translate the traditional goodwill and harmony of thepeople to become political consensus which later gave birth to Sarawak’s first coalition government, which was also thefirst in the country.
Dr. R. Palan, aFellow of the British Institute of Learning and Development, says the consensusis breaking down in most countries in Europe and in the Middle East. But it is thriving inSarawak. This is being reinforced by thephilosophy of the Chief Minister, Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib of building politicalconsensus through his politics of development.
Dr. Phalan recentlyco-authored a book entitled People Development: A leader’s journey in theTransformation of Sarawak – Taib Mahmud, with Dr. Sabariah Putit, ChiefExecutive Officer of the Centre for Modern Management (CMM). He believes civil servants can playapolitical advocacy roles in promoting consensus in the society.
Newly merged PartiBumiputra also tried to merge with SNAP but the gap between them was quitewide. Sarawak’s third Chief Minister, DatoHaji Abdul Rahman Ya’kub (now Tun Datuk Patinggi Haji Abdul Rahman Ya’kub) wasappointed on July 7, 1970 following the inconclusive results of the Stateelections. His appointment came about following the agreement between PartiBumiputra to form the first Coalition government with SUPP, then viewed as theChinese - based party.
The formation of thecoalition government between Parti Bumiputra, which represented 2/3 of theMalays and Ibans, Bidayuhs and Orang Ulu, with SUPP represented about 80% ofChinese, provided a working mechanism for the government in the services of thepeople, State and country.
Then Sarawak was inthe backwater lane of development and facing internal threats in the form ofarmed communist insurgencies from local Communists organization and externalthreat from Sukarno’s Konfrontasi (the late President Sukarno’s crush Malaysiacampaign).
Undoubtedly, thethreats of armed communist insurgencies also created consciousness amongpolitical leaders and the people to work together to solve the securityproblems and more importantly to bring development to the people. In otherwords, they agreed that they could still work together without necessarilyunifying the parties through the policy of unification.
Meanwhile, DatoAbdul Rahman, as Secretary - General of Parti Bumiputra, worked tirelessly withthe late Tun Jugah ( then Tan Sri Jugah) who was the President of Parti Pesakato merge Parti Bumiputra with Parti Pesaka. The merger gave birth to PartiPesaka Bumiputra Bersatu Sarawak (PBB) after three years. Since then, it hasemerged as the strongest and most organized party that provides the backbone ofBarisan Nasional in Sarawak.
Chief Minister,Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, in his recent speech during a dialogue withlocal heads of departments, says the government must work with at least theminimum of consensus in order to deliver what it has promised to the people.The Bumiputras still believe in having consensus among them while leaders ofthe non Bumiputras must endeavor to promote and strengthen links with thepeople on the ground in order to build greater consensus among them.
He says theintroduction of the politics of development was his desire to consolidate thegood nature and goodwill of the people comprising of various ethnic andreligious groups in the state. The bestway to succeed is to build consensus in politics. That explains why community development underhis leadership started with the words politics of development. It could beanything else like Sarawak’s strategy for development or the economic policyfor social development in Sarawak.
But he decided toadopt the politics of development as the philosophy of socio-economic andpolitical development with the belief that the best way to succeed was todevelop consensus among the people as the basis to develop consensus inpolitics in order to succeed in the transformation from a developing to adeveloped state by the year 2020 and beyond.
He considers himselfquite fortunate because he became a politician first as nominated member; hedid not have to fight his way up like chopping other people down. He was asked by the consensus of the Malaycommunity, which had lost quite heavily in the indirect elections, to representthe community. He agreed to do it for five years; now he does not know why hehas been staying for quite some time. Initially, he did not want to stay beyondfive years.
Pehin Sri Abdul Taibsays the idea of democracy was not understood by the people in the early yearsafter Merdeka. It must be linked with the idea to do things in more concertedmanner and the ability to unite the people and share sound and meaningful ideaswith them. The greatest link in all these things was to stay in touch and sharecommon aim with the people.
He says the thingthat binds him together with the people in all his long years in politics is toknow how best to serve and help them. He must know how poor people can becomebetter or illiterate people can get good education. Obviously, the spirit of politicalprocess must be kept alive among people, young people, who are yet to be testedof their knowledge with the reality of the situation, in particular.
He says he hasconsultations with the people in his house, after prayers. The people tell himthings happenings on the ground. Theprocess of consultation is very important especially with young people, whobelieve they know more about the economy, finance and management than thegenerations before them. They want to be consulted on socio-economic and politicaldevelopment of the state and country. Besides, the process of consultation isalso to give opportunities for the people to come and see him. He is happy that thepeople remain united in spite of attempts by certain groups to createdissension among them. The people havebeen able to reject the negative propaganda being spread by the opposition intheir attempts to discredit the leadership and the government. Obviously, thepeople are determined to preserve a more positive situation and environment forthemselves and reject the negative one that does not have proper direction butjust a political foray of the opposition.
Pehin Sri Abdul Taibsays the new generation, who are equipped with knowledge and good education,must be motivated to develop positive attitude and outlook in the future of thestate and country. For example, they must appreciate that when the people areinter-dependent of each other, it is in their own interests to be absorbed inthe development of the growing economy towards the year 2020 and beyond.
He says he hascovered more than 80% of more than 5,000 settlements comprising of traditionalvillages, longhouses, small towns and bazaars, some of them repeatedly,throughout the State. He covered more than 50% of them during the early yearsimmediately after Merdeka.
benuasains
*Source:
Penerangan Photo
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