KUCHING: On Sunday morning, Sarawak was shocked by the passing of its Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr James Jemut Masing who had been in the political arena for almost four decades.
The 72-year-old Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) president breathed his last at the Normah Sarawak Medical Centre (NSMC) in Petra Jaya at 7.05 am and the news was confirmed by the party’s secretary-general Datuk Janang Bungsu when contacted by Bernama.
In September, Masing was admitted to the Sarawak General Hospital after testing positive for Covid-19 in Category Three, before he was transferred to NSMC for further treatment.
Born on March 5, 1949, Masing obtained a PhD in anthropology from Australian National University and was a principal of a secondary school in Kapit before pursuing his higher education in 1972.
After he returned from Australia, he worked as a senior research officer at the Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation before resigning in 1983 to contest in the Sarawak State Election for the Baleh state seat in the same year.
Masing, who represented the now defunct Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS), won the Baleh state seat with a majority of 1,071 votes and defended the seat for eight consecutive terms.
The last time he defended the seat was during the 11th Sarawak state election in 2016.
Masing started his political career when the situation was quite shaky in Sarawak which saw PBDS becoming the opposition at the state level and part of the government at the federal level.
In 1994, when PBDS was accepted to rejoin the state Barisan Nasional (BN) government, Masing was appointed Sarawak Assistant Minister for Tourism in the following year before his appointment as full minister in 1996.
However, following PBDS deregistration in 2004, Masing joined forces with several party leaders to set up PRS where he helmed the party as president the following year until this day.
In 21 years, he had held four key portfolios in Sarawak Cabinet comprising tourism, social development and urbanisation, land development and most recently, infrastructure and port development.
When BN won the state polls in 2016, Masing was appointed as Deputy Chief Minister under the new Cabinet formed by the late Tan Sri Adenan Satem.
Masing’s death is not only felt by politicians in Sarawak and the people in Baleh constituency but he was an affable personality who would be dearly missed by local media practitioners.
May he rest in peace.-Bernama
