O r a l H i st o ry
A Conversation with
Tan Sri Datuk Amar Leo Moggie
What was it like to have been a politician in the early days of Malaysia? A politician (or, as he
would say, a former politician) who can enlighten us on the subject is Tan Sri Leo Moggie. Tan
Sri is the Chairman of TNB and holds the record as its longest-serving non-Executive Chairman, having served since 2004. Prior to this corporate position, he held several portfolios
in government as Local Government Minister, Welfare Services Minister, Minister of Works,
Energy, Telecommunications and Posts and the Minister of Communications and Multimedia.
An Iban, Tan Sri has come a long way
from his humble beginnings in Kanowit,
Sarawak, where his family cultivated hill
paddy. He credits education as the biggest factor that enabled him to succeed.
His background, education, and observations of Sarawak politics were among
the subjects discussed during the threehour long conversation we had with Tan
Sri in June 2015. This conversation will
be published under our Leadership Conversations series. In the meantime, we
produce excerpts from that dialogue,
highlighting Tan Sri’s entry into politics
and his experience under two different
Prime Ministers.
On his entry into politics as an Opposition candidate
“I did not set out to be a politician. I had
always been interested in current affairs,
history and politics. In the late ‘60s and
42 | P e r d a n a M a g a z in e 2 0 1 5
early ‘70s, after Sarawak became part
and parcel of the Malaysian Federation,
the leaders from the rural community,
particularly the Iban and Dayak groups,
were unhappy about being part of Malaysia. Before the formation of Malaysia,
they had been taken to view FELDA developments in the Peninsular and were
persuaded that similar developments
will take place in Sarawak. So, they had
high expectations. When the pace of
development failed to match these expectations, they were disappointed. To
them, the pace of development was not
as rapid as they had expected it to be.
Moreover, the community leaders felt
that we were not yet ready for an effective role in government. We were not
highly educated and so, we were wary
that we would be dominated by other
people. That was the background.
I was in the civil service at the time
– I was the District Officer in Kapit, then
I worked in the Chief Minister’s office in
Kuching. Again, the Dayak and Iban civil
servants felt that the civil service was discriminatory in that Malay civil servants
had a better chance of being promoted
compared to non-Malays. These sentiments mushroomed especially among
the Iban and the general Dayak communities. A few of us with university education discussed these issues among
ourselves. The year was 1974.
When (Tun Datuk Patinggi) Rahman Ya’kub, who was Chief Minister,
asked if I would stand for the coming
elections under Barisan Nasional, I concluded that I could not. I wrote him a
note which also said that if I were to
stand, I would stand under the Opposition banner, Sarawak National Party
(SNAP). Rahman Ya’kub, being the
first-class experienced politician that