The Malaysian Insight

PKR in Sarawak is suffering from a leadership void, which may prove difficult for the party to win any seats in Saturday’s elections, analysts said.

This, coupled with a non-existent election machinery and a lack of guidance from the party headquarters, means that PKR will face an uphill battle against its opponents, they said.

Jeniri Amir, a senior fellow of the National Council of Professors, is of the view that no matter which constituencies the party contests in, it is likely to be defeated.

“Whether it is given A seats or F seats, it doesn’t matter. PKR is a pale shadow of itself. At the peak of its strength in 2016, it only won three seats,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

“Based on the 2016 results, the overall votes garnered by PKR was only 10%.

“What makes (PKR president) Anwar Ibrahim think that PKR is very strong? At least DAP got 20% of the overall votes out of 1.1 million.”

Early this month, Anwar complained his party has been given seats that are difficult to win in the Sarawak elections.

The Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman said PKR has been given what he termed as “category F” constituencies by its partners in the state.

With the departure of Baru Bian and Larry Sng, Jeniri said PKR is a headless chicken in Sarawak.

“Now they don’t even have a chairman at the state level. With influential leaders like Baru Bian no longer there, they are like headless chicken,” he said.

“Plus weak grassroots machinery. I can say that it will be very difficult for them to win seats.

“There is no hope for this election unless they (PKR) can find a leader who is as influential as Baru Bian.”

He said PKR may have a good fight in Telang Usan, an Orang Ulu-majority constituency, but that does not mean it will win.

Telang Usan is seeing a four-cornered fight between Dennis Ngau from Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), Parti Bumi Kenyalang’s Gia Bala, Philip Jau of PKR and Jau Jok @ Jenggo from Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB).

In February last year, following the “Sheraton move”, which led to the collapse of the PH government, Baru, who was Sarawak PKR chairman, left the party and joined PSB.

Larry Sng, who took over from him, subsequently quit on February 28. He is now the deputy president of Parti Bangsa Malaysia, a new political party that will be launched soon.

Jeniri said PKR used to be the number two party in the state in terms of political strength, but this spot now belongs to PSB.

“DAP is still the strongest party in the state. PKR has lost its position to PSB, which is led by experienced leaders from Barisan Nasional,” he said.

In the 2018 general election, PKR won three seats but, following the collapse of the PH federal government, all three of its assemblymen left the party.

Two joined PSB while the other joined Bersatu.

Non-existent machinery

Political analyst Prof James Chin of University of Tasmania said PKR’s weakness in Sarawak is further compounded by the absence of an election machinery.

“PKR is very weak in the state because it doesn’t have any machinery. After the top two leaders – Baru and Sng – left, they are leaderless,” he said.

Chin said savvy PKR candidates have taken things into their own hands rather than wait for help to come from the headquarters.

“In elections, you need a general. Without one, you cannot run a campaign. If you look at the candidates, the stronger ones are those who build up their own machinery in the last year and a half,” he said.

“Some candidates have a good chance of defeating GPS, but as a whole, PKR really has no machinery in the whole of Sarawak,” he said.

Whether or not PKR will be able to win any seat ultimately comes down to the individual candidate, he said.

“After this election, PKR really has to do some major reflection on what it wants to look like in Sarawak, who will lead it and what the party can do,” he said.

“The next test for PKR is the 15th general election, which is only months away. If it doesn’t pull up its socks and get its organisation up and running, it will also be slaughtered.”

No guidance

Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said while there is no state leadership, there is also no guidance from PKR leaders in Kuala Lumpur.

“Sarawak PH is basically in a disarray after the departure of Baru and Sng. In fact, the new state leadership, if any, is still relatively unknown to most Sarawak people,” he said.

“There is not much interference from the PKR headquarters. At this time, they will need some guidance because there is no state leadership.”

Oh also criticised PKR for trying to wrest seats from its PH ally, DAP, when it is rudderless.

“Sarawak PKR is still so audacious to wrest seats from DAP; it’s unseemly for it to do so. DAP, although somewhat weakened, is still formidable. It’s going to win a number of seats,” he said.

“The fact that PKR and DAP could coordinate the seats (in the end) is a good sign. Other than that, it doesn’t seem like they work together a lot at the state level… both parties using their respective logos to contest.”

This is, however, not a reflection of the two parties’ cooperation at the national level, he said.

PKR had been allocated 47 seats to contest in the Sarawak polls but later demanded an increased share, some of which DAP refused to give up.

It subsequently announced that it will only contest in 28 constituencies.

Sarawak has 82 state seats, and ballots will be cast at 1,951 polling centres around the country’s largest state with difficult-to-reach interior areas.

The elections should have been held earlier after the legislative assembly term expired on June 6, but all polls were suspended under a national emergency to fight the Covid-19 epidemic.

When the national emergency ended in August, a localised emergency in Sarawak was extended, until it was lifted on November 3. Polls had to be held within 60 days from that date. – December 15, 2021.