Affendi Jeman
Pro-tem chief considering meeting up with minister for approval
KUCHING: All is not fine with Parti Agenda Rakyat Bumiputera Sarawak (ARBS) last year.
Ever since its application was submitted to the Registrar of Societies on May 20 2009, the much awaited reply has yet to come.
Affendi Jeman is naturally far from happy, saying: “ARBS needs to be approved as soon as possible so that we can prepare the party to contest in the forth coming Sarawak state election.”
Affendi said if an answer is still not forthcoming in the ‘near future’ ARBS protem committee will have to take proactive action.
“We will convey our intention to meet the minister and ministry concerned for the approval if we don’t get any reply to our application,” he said in a statement e-mailed to The Borneo Post yesterday.
“In fact, we were told that the processing of our application has been duly completed by the Register of Societies (ROS) and it has been forwarded to the Ministry Of Internal Affairs for final decision,” he added.
When told that there is also the possibility that ARBS’ registration might be rejected, Affendi said he is optimistic of a positive result based on the successful application of Penang-based Parti Cinta Malaysia (PCM).
Affendi said: “The recent approval of new political party PCM in Peninsular Malaysia has given us hope that the registration of Parti Agenda Rakyat Bumiputera Sarawak will materialise.
“We are confident that Malaysian citizens in Sarawak are not exempted from the federal constitution’s provision which allows citizens to set up political parties.
“The approval of our application will give Sarawakians an alternative political platform to articulate our ideology and to propagate what we struggle for.
“We call on all eligible Sarawakians to register as voters to enable them to exercise their responsibility in choosing leaders and therefore assist in the formation of an elected government.”
Before ARBS, Affendi was chairman of a group calling itself JPUNS (or Jawatankuasa Penaja Umno Negeri Sarawak) that he claimed was set up to spread the wings of Umno into Sarawak.
At one time Affendi said he proposed to form ARBS as an extension of JPUNS which could not make inroads into Sarawak because BN components rejected it outright.
Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) vice president Datuk Daud Abdul Rahman had described the group behind ARBS as ‘opportunists’.
“This (application to form parties) is a normal thing when election is near. If they truly want to support BN, it would not be necessary to form another party because we have PBB and other BN components,” Daud had said then.
Besides, PBB had similar political struggle to Umno’s, therefore, there was no need for Umno to spread its wings to Sarawak, not even through ARBS, Daud had said.
Chief political secretary to the Chief Minister, Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, who is Asajaya assemblyman, also commented then, saying ARBS would be an “excess baggage” to Sarawak.
If the BN leaders’ frowning is not enough, the state PKR’s opinion of ARBS should make fair measure of the kind of reception Affendi’s brainchild is going to get if indeed it gets registered.
“It (ARBS) is patently outdated. It is also an anathema to 1Malaysia which is supposed to unite and not to further divide people. ARBS will not find a place among Sarawakians,” state PKR leader and Padungan assemblyman Dominic Ng had said when ARBS first made its appearance in the media.