COMMENT Looking at different political developments around the world, we can see a growing trend of regionalist sentiments or political regionalism, which basically focuses on the normative interest of a particular region while demanding for greater political power and influence for the residents of that particular region.

Their demands can come in many forms: whether in “strong” ones such as separatism, secession or even independence, or in other “moderate” forms of demands such as those for greater autonomy, decentralisation or devolution of powers. However, each of these movements may even have different interpretations of each of the demands.

With this, we see multiple political parties emerging from secessionist sentiments such as the Scottish National Party (UK), Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (Spain), Parti Québécois (Quebec) and also the Basque Country (Spain and France) among others.

Even Sarawak is not eluded from this growing trend. The growing sense of state pride and a strong sense of origin - especially among Sarawakians - gave birthed to, or more likely re-popularised the sentiment ‘Sarawak for Sarawakians’ (S4S) which has caught relatively strong support among the locals.