My Interview on Radio Australia

Please find the recorded interview online at Radio Australia's ASIA PACIFIC on 18 April 2011 here.


Sarawak state sends Malaysia's BN strong message

Malaysia's Pakatan Rakyat opposition has received a boost from the election in eastern Sarawak state.

While the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition held on to its crucial two-thirds majority, it lost eight seats. That's in contrast to the opposition alliance winning 15, almost doubling their previous number of seats in the state assembly. Prime Minister Najib Razak has described the result as a "strong mandate" but he's unlikely to call early elections before the 2013 deadline.

Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Ibdilillah Ishak, Executive Secretary, Barisan Nasional Youth, Malaysia


IBDILILLAH: The majority of the losses that BN suffered was more on the urban voters, the change would be more on the demographic of the people there. As you can see, many of the seats we lost, were mostly urban seats, which are consisting more of Chinese voters. While the rural voters voted for Barisan Nasional and urban voters voted against Barisan Nasional, to me, the Chinese voters are sending a signal saying that, "We do want some sort of change." In the rural areas, they're still maintaining all the seats with Barisan Nasional and as you can see from the results, we won a bigger majority, compared to 2006.

LAM: But according to some analysts, the reason why the rural voters continued to vote for BN, was that they had this attitude of "better the devil they know," but rural voters still had alot of issues that they felt were not being addressed, such as not benefitting from Sarawak's rich, natural resources.

IBDILILLAH: To me, that's not true, I mean, most of the analysts are making baseless allegations on what Barisan Nasional is doing. And I think in the last state elections, it was proven that we do give out the land issues, to certain areas, not all. But I do agree that, to a certain extent, the state government needs to address that. As you can see, even though the analysts are saying the rural areas are against the government, the state government on the land issues, but they still voted for Barisan Nasional because they agree that it takes a certain amount of time, to really get the process going. What the Opposition is saying is mostly lip service, so what we do is, we're practically doing it on the ground, trying to do alot of change or transformation in Sarawak.

LAM: But then, the Chief Minister Taib Mahmud has ruled Sarawak for over thirty years, and in all that time, he did not do anything about land reform. There're still people displaced from their farms, from their land, through development and they're not getting anything back (no compensation).

IBDILILLAH: Well, all I'm saying is that you haven't spoken to the majority of the people of Sarawak, I guess. I mean, in Australia, I'm sure you do have alot of problem with Aborigines as well. So in Sarawak, we have like, twenty over races, which we need to please. So I think within the Barisan Nasional coalition in Sarawak, we have four coalition members which is PBB, SUPP, PRS and SPDP, the most, PBB has won all thirty-five of its seats, so if you do an analysis, the seats that we have lost were mostly from the SUPP, which is the urban Chinese areas.

LAM: But one of the issues which irritated voters was that the Chief Minister Taib Mahmud had stayed for so long. Do you think Barisan Nasional will pick up on this message, and facilitate leadership change in Sarawak?

IBDILILLAH: Yes, to me the change, the transition plan must go on within the Sarawak government. And I believe that Taib Mahmud has already spoke to the prime minister that he has agreed to a transition plan, and I'm sure that the next state election, the next five years, you will see a new face in Sarawak state government.

LAM: So they have to wait another five years, on top of the thirty years?

IBDILILLAH: From our understanding, it's that towards half of five year term, most probably in two and a half years time. We need to do more, on giving information to the rakyat, or to the people, that this is what the Barisan Nasional government is doing, because currently, I think the One Malaysia motto is really being spinned by the Opposition, especially the DAP in the urban areas, they place alot on race sentiments, in the urban seats. The Opposition is not doing justice to the ends of One Malaysia, because they're spinning on this One Malaysia motto, which the prime minister is doing, and unfortunately, DAP is using alot of these racism issues against Barisan Nasional. Alot of the voters in the urban areas, yes, they are more educated, they know alot of issues. Yes, I think in Sarawak, most of the voters, the urban voters, have had enough, like you said, of Taib Mahmud's thirty years of leadership in Sarawak government. But to me, he has done alot in these thirty years, and I think with his transition plan, he should be given more time, at least two more years.