All eyes on Abang Johari

AT the height of the 1987 Sarawak political crisis, Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud asked a group of reporters at a cocktail reception who among a crop of young Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) leaders had the necessary leadership qualities to succeed him.

A senior reporter suggested Datuk Salleh Jafaruddin and another pointed to Datuk Wan Habib Syed Mahmud or up and coming Datuk Wan Madzihi, all senior members of PBB.

A young reporter suggested to Taib to groom a 30-something (now Datuk Seri) Abang Johari Abang Openg (pix), who had just been elected Satok assemblyman.

The seasoned reporters looked at the young reporter with raised eyebrows. 

“He is too young and inexperienced,” shouted a senior reporter, who had since left the fourth estate. 

Taib, however, reserved his comment. 

Today, Abang Johari is the front-runner to succeed Taib as Sarawak’s fifth chief minister.

An MBA graduate from a British university, Abang Johari is PBB’s deputy president (2), a post he won with ease in the 1998 party elections, defeating special adviser to the Chief Minister’s Department Tan Sri Adenan Satem and former defence minister Datuk Abang Abu Bakar Datuk Bandar Mustapha.

Abang Johari’s father was the first governor of post-Independence Sarawak, Tun Abang Openg Abang Sapiee.

Keen watchers of Sarawak politics say Abang Johari, who has many close friends in Putrajaya, has the necessary credentials and has shown himself to be a very effective and capable minister. 

They also see him as a creative and innovative minister – one who is full of new and practical ideas. 

During his tenure as the industrial development minister, he was able to bring in billions of ringgit of foreign direct investments (FDI) to the state, mostly to the Muara Tubuan Free Trade Industrial Zone in Kuching.

The amount of FDI to Sarawak dropped drastically after he was moved to the state Tourism Ministry.

But in the Tourism Ministry, he again proved himself to be a capable minister by turning it into a money-minting machine, earning billions of ringgit from tourists from Japan, Korea, China, Arab and Europe.

In a subsequent cabinet reshuffle, Abang Johari was moved to the ailing state Housing Ministry and was shocked to find that the ministry was nearly “bankrupt”.

There was no fund even to build a single house.

Undeterred, he took his problems to his federal counterpart and managed to secure a RM200 million allocation to carry out people’s housing projects in the state.

He is still the minister of housing and urban development, and in the cabinet line-up announced by Taib after the state election, he was also handed the tourism and heritage minister post, which was vacated by Tan Sri Dr George Chan after the latter was defeated in the polls. 

When Abang Johari won the party No.2 post, he did so against Taib’s handpicked candidate, Adenan. 

An upset Taib did not punish Abang Johari, but PBB leaders who supported him were slowly “phased out” from the party and the state government.

It took a while for Taib to come to terms with Abang Johari as his deputy.

Taib has expressed his desire to step down as chief minister in the past, but it was only this year that he has repeatedly mentioned it in his public speeches. 

Political observers expected him to pick Abang Johari as his successor.

When Taib stated that he wanted his successor to be fair to all the races in the state, he needed not look far. 

When Abang Johari contested for the party’s No. 2 post and won, he had the support of not just the Malays and Melanaus, but also the Dayaks in the party. The support of the Dayaks was something that Adenan failed to get.

The next name mentioned is Datuk Awang Tengah Ali Hassan, senior vice-president (I) of the party and minister of public utilities and second minister of planning and resource management.

Had it not been Abang Johari holding the position of deputy president, Taib would have picked Awang Tengah as his successor.

Still some senior party members believed that in the end Awang Tengah would be picked.

They said Taib was referring to Awang Tengah when he mentioned that he had groomed a successor for the last 20 years.

But Awang Tengah’s main disadvantage may be his lack of support from the Dayak members of PBB and some Malays.

They are also not happy with the way he handled land matters, especially NCR land. Dayak votes in the party are crucial to anyone aspiring to lead the party.

In the past months, Taib had also been seeking the views of the people close to him, including some Dayak and Chinese ministers, regarding his possible successor. -


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