Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem has imposed upon himself 45 principles and actions to adhere to and fulfil as Chief Minister of Sarawak.
He has already made a good head-start 20 months into his stewardship taking everybody by surprise as he hit the ground running taking on issues like illegal logging, encroachment of foreign fishermen into the state’s waters, corruption and confronting the ‘ghost lorries’ of Bakun.
These are some of the issues many Sarawakians have come to accept they have to live with as the perpetrators have been getting away with their crimes for so long that they seemed to be above the law but not all of Adenan’s tasks are about fighting ‘monsters’, in fact his main focus if he were given the 5-year mandate after the next election is developing the state especially the rural areas.
However, to carry out his tasks effectively he would need a unified state government and solid support from the people.
His track record in his first 20 months as chief minister all but guarantees him overwhelming support from the people but achieving unity within the state Barisan Nasional (BN) is a different kettle of fish.
While it can be argued that there is no dispute among the BN component parties in the state since the four parties Parti Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP), Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) have no issues with each other, the situation is complicated by the formation of two breakaway BN – friendly parties from SPDP and SUPP.
These parties, United People’s Party (UPP) an offshoot of SUPP and Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras) which broke away from SPDP are for all intent and purposes BN parties since most of their state assemblymen are in the state cabinet.
But admitting them officially into the state BN is a task that Adenan has been struggling with without making any headway so far.
The stumbling block is the mandatory unanimous agreement of the component parties for a new party to be admitted into the coalition and SPDP, SUPP and PRS have made it clear they would never allow that to happen.
Left with no choice the chief minister has to fall back on the BN-Plus formula which is awkward and would eventually affect the performance of the state government as it would be hampered by the fractious relationship among the ruling parties.
The stand-off between SUPP and UPP has the better chance of being solved as UPP has already reached out to find a compromise despite SUPP’s outright rejection so far.
More importantly both parties have the same goal of getting the Chinese back into the mainstream politics and to do that they would have to deal with DAP in the Chinese majority urban seats.
Both their chances would be badly affected if they were to fight each other thereby splitting the pro-government votes and giving a chance for DAP to sneak in.
Common sense dictates that both parties have to take a step backward to allow for a compromise not only for the sake of the Chinese community but also their very own survival.
On the other hand there seem to be no light at the end of the tunnel in the fight between SPDP and Teras and chances are it would end up with a winners-take-all contest between them in the next election.
If all his efforts to get the four parties to reconcile fail Adenan will be forced to wield the big stick and make a final decision no matter how unpopular it may be.