Miri’s politics of handshakes
Depressed oil prices have dampened the once boom-boom mood of Miri, but the buzz in this oil town is about who has the right touch to represent them in Parliament.
Analysis NEW palatial homes have appeared along the coastal stretch known as Miri’s version of the “Gold Coast” over the last couple of years.
Two of those homes, which glitter like jewels at night, belong to members of one of the richest families in Sarawak.
They are stupendously opulent, even by the standards of extravagance that Miri’s millionaires’ row is known for.
One of the buildings sits on such a steep hillside that a special elevated road, which curves in an Sshape, had to be built from the main road to the front porch.
Nothing like that had ever been seen in Miri and it was the talk of the town shortly after it was built, and the homes have become a tourist attraction of sorts.
But the buzz in Miri town over the last few weeks was about PKR’s Miri MP Dr Michael Teo, who won the seat in 2013.
There had been intense speculation that Dr Teo, a gynaecologist with a clinic in downtown Miri, would not be defending the Miri parliamentary seat in the general election. This was in spite of Dr Teo showing little sign of calling it a day.
Things finally bubbled to the surface at a DAP fundraising dinner in Miri on Saturday night. Dr Teo, a guest at the dinner, declared onstage that he would be seeking reelection.
Minutes later, DAP assemblyman for Padungan Wong King Wei went onstage to say that there were calls to replace Dr Teo and that Pakatan Harapan might have a new candidate if he was found to be “no longer suitable”.
Dr Teo is not a natural politician and there have been rumblings that he has not delivered.
It must have been extremely awkward at the VIP table that night because it was also clear by then that DAP wants the seat for its Miri chairman Alan Ling.
Ling, a tall and goodlooking lawyer, was known as the giantkiller when he defeated SUPP president and state minister Tan Sri George Chan in the Piasau state seat in the 2011 state election.
But Ling lost to SUPP’s Datuk Sebastian Ting in the 2016 state election and he is impatient to make an electoral comeback.
Dr Teo told The Star on Tuesday that the matter had been settled and he would be defending the seat.
He did not elaborate on how the dispute was resolved, but claimed that DAP had apologised and he had accepted the apology.
Anyway, this sort of seatgrabbing is not a done thing and Dr Teo has every reason to be upset. It will be a tough election for him and he is not going to get much cooperation from his DAP partners.
He will also be facing a much more organised Barisan Nasional than in the 2013 general election. This will be Sarawak’s first general election without Tun Taib Mahmud, the former chief minister who was a lightning rod for Chinese discontent.
Will that make much of a difference for Sarawak Barisan? Well, the mood in Sarawak today is quite different from that of five years ago – the anger has come down and the two chief ministers after Taib have stood up for the rights of Sarawakians.
Moreover, the Barisan strategy this time is to put up the most winnable candidate regardless of whether that person is already holding a state seat.
It is all about winnability. As a result, Dr Teo may find himself going against one of Miri’s most liked politicians – Ting, whose people style has become a sort of rulebook for his colleagues in SUPP.
“We tell our party members, ‘If you want to go into politics, you must follow Sebastian’s style’,” said former unionist and SUPP politician Huang Huat Choon.
Locals talk about Ting’s famous handshake – one hand over the other of everyone he shakes hands with. For instance, upon arriving at the airport in Miri, he shakes hands with all the taxi drivers before getting into his car.
Eating out with him often takes forever because he goes around the restaurant shaking hands with everyone, including the waiters. And all that is apart from the service his team delivers in his area.
There is a pedestrian street in Miri town where senior citizens hang out every morning to chat, play checkers and exchange political gossip.
The senior folk give Ting the thumbs up, compared to another SUPP assemblyman whom they complain does not even look at them when he shakes their hands. Ting, they say, has rather small eyes but always makes eye contact with whoever he greets.
A YB’s work in Sarawak is quite different from that of their counterparts in the peninsula and there are lots of “chicken soup for the soul” type of stories from these parts.
Dr Teo sometimes pays for coffins for the poor people who die in his constituency and runs free clinics.
Ting, on the other hand, has been known to stop by at a polyclinic in Miri, where people from the highland arrive as early as 6am to see the doctor.
He brings sweaters and warm food for them because he knows that they have travelled a long way with limited resources.
Smalltown politics is not always about big issues or saving Malaysia, and that personal gesture and eye contact can bring in the extra vote.
Barisan is gunning to take back Miri and the people’s choice may boil down to who has that special people touch.