SARAWAK’S powerful ruling party is going to withdraw from Barisan Nasional despite an 11th-hour plea by ‎Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the coalition’s acting chief.

The move by Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) will shave 13 parliamentary seats from the 79 that BN won on May 9, further weakening the coalition that had ruled the country for six decades.

The withdrawal of PBB, which is BN’s second-largest component, and possibly other Sarawak parties from the coalition could result in an exodus of Umno/BN politicians.

Sources told The Malaysian Insight that Chief Minister and PBB president Abang Johari Openg had, on May 31, informed Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad about the decision to leave BN, and assured the latter that Sarawak would support the Pakatan Harapan government in “matters of Sarawak interests, and in the interest of Malaysia as a whole”.

After that meeting in Putrajaya, Aba‎ng Johari met Zahid in Kuala Lumpur. The interim Umno president pleaded with Abang Johari, who is also Sarawak BN chief, not to go ahead with PBB’s withdrawal.

Zahid used the word “hancur”, said a BN source, signalling the coalition’s desperation if it were to lose its 19 federal lawmakers in Sarawak.

In the 14th general election, Sarawak BN contested 31 federal seats but won only 19, an outcome few expected of a state long touted as the coalition’s “fixed deposit”.

“Zahid told Abang Jo that BN would be destroyed if PBB left,” said the source.

The chief minister’s response to Zahid was that it was PBB that could be destroyed in the 2021 state polls if it did not distance itself from BN’s excesses and corruption.

Abang Johari had, on May 16, revealed that the state BN was reviewing its position in the pact after GE14, and floated the idea of forming a coalition of Sarawak-based parties.

The decision to leave BN, however, will be firmed up only after PBB has consulted the three other Sarawak-based BN parties, namely Parti Rakyat Sarawak, Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and Progressive Development Party.

The pro-BN United People’s Party could be included in the proposed coalition.

SUPP reportedly made the decision to abandon BN in its central working committee meeting on the night of May 15, but has yet to make this public. – June 7, 2018.