The Appeal and the Limits of “Dayakism”: Why “Sarawak First” Still Wins

Ethnicity plays out differently across Malaysia. In the Peninsula, identity politics are comparatively rigid — Malay versus non-Malay, with Islam and Malay identity fused not just culturally but constitutionally. In the Borneo States of Sabah and Sarawak, the picture is less binary. Religion plays a smaller role in daily life, cultural identities are more diffuse, and ethnic lines are less clear-cut.

Sarawak’s largest ethnic group is the Dayak, a collective term for the state’s non-Muslim indigenous groups who account for 42 per cent of the population, comprising the Iban (28 per cent), Bidayuh (eight per cent), Orang Ulu (“people of the interior”) and other indigenous groups (six per cent). The rest of the population consists of Malays (24 per cent) and Melanau (five per cent), most of them Muslim, and Chinese (24 per cent).

Power struggles within the Dayak community and between the Dayak, Malay-Melanau and Chinese blocs are layered with personality politics and, increasingly, “Sarawak First” nationalism. Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), the state’s ruling coalition, formally broke away from Barisan Nasional (BN) in 2018 and champions Sarawakian identity over ethnicity. Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), now GPS’s dominant component party, has anchored the state government since the 1970s. In that time, every chief minister has come from the Muslim Bumiputera bloc — Melanau (Abdul Rahman Ya’kub, 1970–81; Taib Mahmud, 1981–2014) or Malay (Adenan Satem, 2014–17; Abang Johari, 2017–) — an unbroken 56-year run. That dominance traces back to 1966, when Kuala Lumpur used emergency powers to remove Iban Chief Minister Stephen Kalong Ningkan for resisting federal control. It has endured because Muslim Bumiputera voters consolidated behind one party while the Dayak vote split across several.

The coming election could be Abang Johari’s last as Premier. With GPS’s return to power virtually assured, the more consequential question is succession, and whether it could for the first time, produce a Dayak premier. A Dayak successor would show that GPS’s “Sarawak First” slogan is inclusive. However, choosing another Malay-Melanau-Muslim successor would only keep alive the grievance on which ethnonationalist appeals or “Dayakism” thrive.

As Sarawak heads into a state election, the race to claim the Dayak vote is once again under way. In a state where no ethnic group commands a majority on its own, no party can rule Sarawak without the Dayak vote, the largest bloc.

A Dayak successor would show that GPS’s “Sarawak First” slogan is inclusive. However, choosing another Malay-Melanau-Muslim successor would only keep alive the grievance on which ethnonationalist appeals or “Dayakism” thrive.

Despite the community’s size, Dayak representation remains fragmented and uneven. Of the 82 seats in the state legislative assembly, 34 are Dayak-majority seats (constituencies where Dayaks form more than 50 per cent of voters). GPS won all but two of them in 2021, spread across its component parties: PBB, PRS (Parti Rakyat Sarawak), PDP (Progressive Democratic Party) and SUPP (Sarawak United Peoples’ Party). PRS, the coalition’s main Dayak-based party, held 11 seats. No opposition party currently represents the Dayaks in the assembly.

Social media has recently been awash with Dayak grievances, from calls to reclaim ancestral land to complaints of underrepresentation in government. One widely circulated table purported to show Dayak numbers in key management positions falling well short of their Malay-Melanau-Muslim counterparts. GPS’s response was pointed. At the PBB Special Convention in August, Premier Abang Johari rejected the marginalisation narrative outright, declaring “Siapa nya pandai, nya lah naik” (whoever is capable will rise), and framing leadership as a matter of merit, not ethnicity.

Past election results suggest Dayak challenges for top leadership face steep odds. Even a clean sweep of all 34 Dayak-majority seats would leave a Dayak party short of the 42 needed to govern, forcing it into partnership with Malay-Melanau or Chinese parties already locked into GPS. In 2021, opposition parties, chief among them Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak Baru (PBDSB, now PBDS), dangled the prospect of a Dayak Chief Minister to court support — a gambit that failed to shift loyalties in any meaningful way.

That appeal has a long history. Founded in 1983, PBDS mobilised Dayak sentiment more consistently than any other party, coining the rallying cry “Dayakism” during its failed 1991 bid to install a Dayak Chief Minister. Deregistered in 2004, it was revived in 2013 as PBDS Baru (PBDSB) and reclaimed the PBDS name in 2022. Another opposition party, the now-defunct Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB), was formed in 2014 after a SUPP breakaway and dissolved in March 2024, its members absorbed into PDP (a GPS coalition party). With PSB’s dissolution, PBDS stands as GPS’s only visible Dayak-based challenger, though a far less formidable one than the online noise around it suggests.

GPS’s edge also lies in its track record of delivering development to rural, Dayak-majority areas. That record, paired with its skilful use of Sarawak nationalism, helped GPS win most of those 34 Dayak-majority seats by comfortable margins in 2021, underscoring just how little electoral purchase Dayakism holds.

The more significant contest is now unfolding within GPS itself. Since PRS president James Jemut Masing died in October 2021, Dayak politics has lacked a leader of comparable weight. Many are asking whether Alexander Nanta Linggi, PBB secretary-general and Kapit MP, might fill that void. Nanta has confirmed he will not defend his parliamentary seat at the next general election and has signalled his intention to contest a proposed new state seat in Melekun, within Kapit, pending gazettement.

But Nanta would need the backing of Abang Johari and Deputy Premier Douglas Uggah Embas, PBB’s most senior Dayak figure. The Dayak challenge facing GPS, then, is less external than internal — a quiet contest among its own Dayak leaders to become the community’s next standard-bearer.

Former Chief Minister Adenan Satem brought Sarawak First into the political mainstream in 2014, a framing for demands under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) that Abang Johari has since carried forward. But Sarawak First sentiment is not just GPS’s state-level winning formula; it also underwrites GPS’s pivotal role in federal politics, where its 23 MPs are a pillar of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Unity Government. More uncomfortably, it entrenches PBB and by extension, Malay-Melanau-Muslim predominance within GPS, unless the coalition proves genuinely willing to hand power to a Dayak leader.

In the coming election, the odds look unfavourable for anyone tempted to weaponise ethnicity to mobilise support. Those stoking Dayak sentiment for electoral gain will have to convince not just the Dayak, but Sarawakians of which matters more: Dayak First or Sarawak First.

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