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Political Parties in Sarawak and Sabah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

R. S. Milne
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Extract

It is a commonplace that political development must be prepared for and planned for. Without adequate preparation and planning there will be chaos, perhaps approaching Congo-like proportions. The dangers are all the greater in multi-racial societies, such as Sarawak and North Borneo. A warning against the premature introduction of political parties in Sarawak was given by the Governor in 1959 only a few weeks before the Sarawak United Peoples' Party was founded. “It is … essential that party politics should not cause further divisions in our community but should have a unifying and binding effect. If a party tends to be dominated by one race or class … it may have a disintegrating effect on our community …… I frankly doubt if political parties at the present stage of development will spell faster progress in this small country …” These misgivings were echoed from North Borneo, by its Governor, some six months later. “People of like taste or like purpose are all too probably of like race, and nothing could promise greater disaster for this country than its division on communal lines.” The Governor knew of no multiracial society in the world “where as yet there has been evolved a satisfactory, stable or easy working form of fully representative Government”. Nearly four years later the next Governor of North Borneo warned of the danger of “mounting the tiger of political parties prematurely”. The formation of parties at this stage “carried the greatest danger of communal strife”.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , September 1965 , pp. 104 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1965

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References

1. Sarawak by the Week (Kuching: Information Service), 21/59, 05 24–30, 1959, p.3Google Scholar. A number of Iban leaders, in a radio forum broadcast a few days later, were cautious about Ibans, at their existing stage of development, participating in political parties (Ibid., 22/59, May 31–June 6, pp.1–2). A few months later the Governor was of a similar opinion, but conceded that parties had probably come to stay (ibid., 44/59, November 1–7, p.5).

2. Straits Times, 12 5, 1959.Google Scholar

3. Ibid., October 3, 1963.

4. On Sarawak see Bang, Liang Kim, Sarawak, 1941–1957Google Scholar and Lee, Edwin, Sarawak in the Early Sixties (Singapore: University of Singapore, 1964)Google Scholar. On North Borneo see Baker, M.H., North Borneo, the First Ten Years, 1946–1956 (Singapore: Malaya Publishing House, 1962).Google Scholar

5. These statistics are conveniently given in the Report of the Commission of Enquiry, North Borneo and Sarawak (the ‘Cobbold Report’) (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printer, 1962).

6. As proposed by Mr. Dagok anak Raden, Council Negri Debates, 5th Session (Kuching), 03 8, 1963, col.67.Google Scholar

7. Sarawak Tribune, 04 17, 1963Google Scholar, quoting the party leader, the Datu Bandar. See also the denial of a reported reason for the PANAS departure in Sarawak by the Week, 19/63, May 5–11, Supplement, p.9.

8. Estimated at 70 Dayaks and 7 Malays, compared with 130 Chinese (Sarawak Tribune, 06 22, 1963).Google Scholar

9. Straits Times, 02 18, 1964Google Scholar. In June 1965 PANAS rejoined the Alliance.

10. Quoted in Sarawak Tribune, 06 4, 1963.Google Scholar

11. Straits Times, 10 18, 1962.Google Scholar

12. Some of these abortive parties and organizations are referred to in United Nations Malaysia Mission Report (Kuala Lumpur: Department of Information, 1963)Google Scholar, paras 226–7.

13. Tilman, Robert O., “Elections in Sarawak”, Asian Survey, Vol. III, No. 10, 10, 1963Google Scholar. See also Ratnam, K.J. and Milne, R.S., The Malayan General Election of 1964Google Scholar (forthcoming), Chapter on the elections in the Borneo territories.

14. But on the Chinese vote in Sabah see an attempted explanation by Glick, Henry Robert, “The Chinese Community in Sabah and the 1963 Election”, Asian Surtuey, Vol. V, No. 3, 03, 1965.Google Scholar

15. Cf. Almond, Gabriel A., “Comparative Political Systems”, Journal of Politics Vol. XVIII, No. 3, 1956Google Scholar; Riggs, Fred W., Administration in Developing Countries: the Theory of Prismatic Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964).Google Scholar

16. Almond, Gabriel A. and Coleman, James S. (eds.). The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton: University Press, 1960), pp. 33–45.Google Scholar

17. By Rahman, Tengku Abdul, Straits Times, 12 14, 1964Google Scholar. This claim was denied by the then Chief Minister, Dato Donald Stephens (UPKO).

18. USNO Press Release, 03 5, 1964.Google Scholar

19. Straits Times, 06 13, 1964.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., December 18, 1964. The United Pasok Momogun Kadazan Organization was formed by the union of UNKO and Pasok Momogun, June, 1964.

21. Heidenheimer, Arnold J., “Comparative Party Finance: Notes on Practices and Towards a Theory”, Journal of Politics, Vol. 25, No. 3, 1963.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Ideology is a substitute for money. These remarks, consequently, apply to the Alliance parties; they do not apply to parties which find it easy to recruit helpers at elections who are content to work for little or nothing, because they are ideologically-inspired, for instance in the SUPP or, in Malaya, the Socialist Front or the Pan-Malayan Islamic Party.

23. The Danger Within (Kuching: Sarawak Information Service, 1963).Google Scholar

24. For instance, on a motion declaring support for the Government of Malaysia in its resistance to Indonesian aggression and in taking strong action against the CCO and other subversive elements (Straits Times, 04 16, 1964).Google Scholar

25. On education, see A Guide to Education in Sarawak (Kuching: Sarawak Information Service, 1961)Google Scholar; McLellan, D., Report on Secondary Education (Kuching: Government Printing Office, 1959)Google Scholar. On land, see Sarawak Gazette, 05 31, 1955, pp. 97–101Google Scholar. In the last few years legislation has been prepared to enable more Chinese to settle legally on the land. But when it was introduced in the legislature it resulted in a crisis among the Alliance parlies (May, 1965) and a government reshuffle. The net result was that PANAS rejoined the Alliance and was represented in the Government (June, 1905).

26. The Danger Within, pp.6–7, 14–15 and 25–27.Google Scholar

27. The SUPP claims that these resignations were inflated and over-publicized by the Government (United Nations Malaysia Mission Report, para 91).

28. MrHui, Ong Kee, Straits Times, 05 23, 1964Google Scholar and Borneo Bulletin, 09 19, 1964.Google Scholar

29. Cf. the arrests by the government of the left-wing People's Action Party leaders in Singapore, 1959.

30. Registered in January, 1964. It was described as a ‘fair shares’ party, with objectives similar to the British Labour Party (Borneo Bulletin, 01 4, 1964Google Scholar). Mr. Chin was the founder of the Democratic Party, which later joined with the United Party to form SANAP. He was also instrumental in creating Pasok Momogun.

31. Straits Times, 06 13, 12 18 and 12 30, 1964.Google Scholar

32. Dato Donald Stephens, ibid., December 21, 1964.

33. Stephens, Dato, Sabah Times, 03 13, 1965.Google Scholar

34. Via the Jesselton branch (ibid., February 25, 1965). The move was encouraged by the MCA. A few months later the two bodies merged in a single organization, the Sarawak Chinese Association.

35. Ibid., January 30, 1965.