THE passing of Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr James Masing this week from heart complications after recovering from Covid-19 has brought forth all-round tributes.
This speaks to the rare qualities of a political leader able to surmount rather challenging odds in the often tumultuous nature of Dayak politics, and ultimately triumph.
I first met Masing in 1982 as a rookie reporter on a field trip to the Batang Ai hydroelectric dam, just before its lake was flooded over. As the first Iban to hold a doctorate, he introduced himself as a consultant for the Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation. It was almost inevitable that he would join politics, which he did the following year, becoming an assemblyman and continuously remaining as one till his demise.
It looked to be a propitious moment for his entry into politics, joining the newly set-up Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS), an offshoot of the Sarawak National Party (SNAP), which used to be the party for aspiring Iban politicians.
The latter party was irreparably split when the late Datuk Amar James Wong won its presidency on the contentious insistence it was a multiracial rather than an Iban/Dayak-based party.
There was the promise then that the most toxic political crisis since the Ningkan constitutional crisis in the early years of Malaysia was behind Dayak politics.
As the fledgeling PBDS firmed up its footing under the leadership of Tan Sri Leo Moggie, confident it had the backing not just of the Dayak intelligentsia but also the grassroots, it stumbled on yet another political split, perhaps more severe.
Datuk Patinggi (now Tun) Taib Mahmud took over the presidency of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) and with it, the chief ministership from his uncle Tun Abdul Rahman Ya'kub in 1981.
By 1983, the first signs of serious disagreements between uncle and nephew had surfaced. Rahman engineered a breakaway PBB faction and corralled a majority of state assemblymen in Kuala Lumpur to demand Taib's resignation.
Instead, Taib called a snap state election in 1987. PBDS, sensing a political opportunity, threw its lot in with Taib's rebels. Riding a strong "Dayakism" wave, the party won 15 seats in the then 48-seat state assembly.
It would have won the right to name one of its own as chief minister had Rahman's group secured at least 10 seats for an overall majority.
Instead, Taib clawed back power with a 28-seat majority and the solid backing of the Sarawak United People's Party. PBDS had lost its big political gamble.
Masing was later to tell this writer that it was no fun in the state opposition, and worse for a party dependent on votes in remote longhouses in a state almost the size of Peninsular Malaysia.
While Moggie kept the party going from his federal ministerial perch, Masing helped guide the party back into the good graces of Taib and a seat back in government again in 1994. When Moggie retired in 2004, a leadership tussle between Masing and another former deputy chief minister, Datuk Seri Daniel Tajem, led to the de-registration of the party.
Masing had led the successor Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) until his death. The question now is what fate follows for the party.
Deputy president Datuk Joseph Salang, a protégé of Moggie and former deputy foreign minister, has assumed the party leadership pending the expected state election and subsequent new leadership.
The hiccup to Salang as Masing's successor is that he is currently neither an assemblyman nor a parliamentarian, and unless he finds and wins a state seat in the coming polls, he cannot take over Masing's ministerial position.
A corporate figure before joining politics, he has had mixed success as political leader, unlike Masing who never lost his Baleh seat since 1983. Moreover, the opposition Parti Sarawak Bersatu has been building political momentum and girding to take over PRS's place as the predominant Dayak-based party.
Masing's passing could not have come at a more delicate moment, for the party as well as the ruling Gabungan Parti Sarawak coalition.
The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times