Sarawak News: End of the road for assemblyman Lawan?

Written by: Joseph Tawie | Free Malaysia Today

Parti Rakyat Sarawak is "collecting evidence" to lynch their 'errant' assemblyman Snowdan Lawan who allegedly campaigned for his father against a party candidate.

KUCHING: Two-term Balai Ringin assemblyman Snowdan Lawan’s political future is at stake following allegations that he had helped campaign for his father Donald in the recently concluded parliamentary elections here.

Donald contested the Sri Aman seat as an independent candidate against Barisan Nasional’s Masir Kujat.

Kujat, who is with Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), was in a four-cornered fight with PKR’s Nicholas Mujah and Wilfred Landong of Sarawak Workers Party (SWP).

Kujat secured 12,168 votes against Donald’s 3,867. Mujah secured 5,618 votes and Landon received 476 votes.

PRS president James Masing said the party was “collecting evidence” of Lawan’s assistance to his father. Lawan is PRS deputy secretary-general.

“PRS knows that he refused to campaign for Masir (Kujat). But did he assist his father?

“PRS is waiting for evidence that Snowdan (Lawan) campaigned for his father during the GE13,” said Masing, who is Land Development Minister.

Masing was asked to comment on calls for disciplinary action against Lawan including expulsion, if the latter was found to have campaigned for his father.

Grassroots leaders and members of the party had alleged that Lawan had been helping his father even before the dissolution of Parliament.

“Snowdan (Lawan) has been seen going around with his father to discredit the BN.

“The fact that he never turned up at my events despite being invited also raised doubt on his sincerity towards the BN-PRS candidate,” Kujat said in a statement.

‘Don’t want saboteurs’
Another PRS leader and Ngemah assemblyman Alexander Vincent also called on the party leadership to expel Lawan.

“We don’t want saboteurs in the party,” he reportedly said.

Masing had warned Lawan not to contest in Sri Aman as it would affect his son’s political future in Balai Ringin which is a part of the Sri Aman parliamentary constituency. The other two state constituencies within the area are Bukit Begunan and Simanggang.

“As I have said before, Lawan should not have contested against BN candidate in Sri Aman because his action would jeopardise his son’s political future in the party,” Masing said.

But Lawan had refused to listen to him.

“Now Lawan has to bear the consequences of his action,” said Masing, although he acknowledged that it was Lawan’s democratic right to contest.

“But his action has jeopardised his son’s political future,” he added.

Masing is noted for his courage and strong advocacy for party discipline in getting rid of ‘bad apples’ in the party as he did to Larry Sng in 2009, although Sng was a ‘blue-eyed boy’ of the Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud.

Sng was expelled from PRS after he tried to challenge Masing for the leadership of the party.

“He will not hesitate to expel Snowdan (Lawan) if he is found guilty, even though Snowdan’s (Lawan’s) father is an influential member of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB),” said a party leader, who did not wish to be identified.

Lawan’s loyalty suspect
History has not shown Lawan to be partial to PRS.
According to some PRS leaders, looking back at Lawan’s political background, there were always questions regarding his loyalty to the party.

During the Larry Sng-Masing crisis from 2006-2009, Lawan was supportive of Sng. Lawan only backed Masing after the later threatened to drop him from the list of candidates in the 2006 state elections.

Donald and Lawan’s relationships with other leaders especially Kujat and Mong Dagang, who is Bukit Begunan assemblyman is far from good. There exist feelings of ill-will and animosity between them, especially when Donald allegedly accused Kujat of being corrupt.

According to Kujat’s aides, Donald was his director of operations in the 2008 general election and was furious that he was subsequently ignored in terms of development projects.

Each year a Barisan MP is allocated several million ringgit to carry out minor rural projects (MRP) in their respective constituencies.
They said that Lawan being a businessman and a contractor wanted some ‘pay-back’ after he had helped Kujat to win.

Since then, Kujat was the target of various accusations and allegations which Lawan published in his Iban language bulletin – The Bulletin Kenyalang.

In one of the issues of Bulletin Kenyalang, Kujat was described as “corrupted and under Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigation” for allegedly abusing his funds for rural projects.
Donald accused Kujat of using his MRP funds to allegedly buy votes.

Donald explains
Explaining his reason for contesting against Kujat, Donald said: “I stood because my conscience was troubling me that Kujat was not carrying his duties to effectively benefit the people of Sri Aman.

“With my conscience and responsibility bothering me and with the interest of the people of Sri Aman in my mind I made the decision to contest as a BN friendly candidate.”

With Donald’s explanation and Lawan’s failure to assist Kujat’s polls campaign, Masing now has an excuse to act against Lawan.

“If there is clear evidence Masing will not hesitate to expel him. And if there is no clear evidence, Masing is expected to drop him as the candidate for coming state election which is expected to be held in two years from now,” said the PRS leader.