Abg Johari confident PDP in good hands under Tiong, calls on Sarawakians to look to the future
Abang Johari sounds the gong to declare open PDP’s TGA as Tiong (on Abang Johari’s right) and other senior party members look on.
BINTULU: Leaders of the new coalition Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) must be able to learn from the past and look to the future, said its chairman Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg.
“We have the ecosystem for the future, what is important is the stability among us, stability and understanding among the 2.8 million Sarawakians, we work together everybody has a share in this development process, we have talents and this is the spirit of GPS.
“We in GPS, we work together for the sake of the people, what is past is past, what we look to is the future,” he said when officiating at the opening of Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) triennial general assembly (TGA) at Bintulu Civic Centre yesterday.
Abang Johari is confident that PDP, under the leadership of its president Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing, will be able to achieve a brighter future with the strong participation of the young generation.
“When looked at the GPS logo is from the grassroots, from our young people. We are here today for the future, we don’t talk about the past, this is a new era, we talk about the future, it is for our young people,” he said.
According to the Chief Minister, from Sarawak’s past 55 years as an independent state, the Sarawak government had learned a lot on how to manage its politics to develop the state.
“We learned a lot for the past 55 years, starting from 1963 right up to May last year, we know that our state was previously administered through our relationship with Kuala Lumpur.
“Firstly with Parti Perikatan and after that from 1970 through a coalition called Barisan Nasional.
“During that period we learned, we faced many problems together because we just got our independence, especially for Gagasan Malaysia. First we were under the communist threat, then confrontation and, thirdly, political instability.
“These are the three major challenges that we faced when we just became an independent state,” said Abang Johari.
And, surprisingly last year, he said, there was a major change when the federal government was defeated in the last election.
“We must examine the weakness in the federal arrangement and the solution for Sarawak,” he said.
He said in the spirit of BN coalition there is a concept of consensus but the problem is when the ‘big brother’ has decided the minority groups have to obey and this is where some policies affected Sarawak.
The late Tok Nan (Pehin Sri Adenan Satem) saw this and he decided to fight for the eroded power to be given back to Sarawak and, in the 2016 state election, the people gave the big mandate to the state government to continue the struggle.
“The leaders today we continue what we promised in the 2016 manisfesto and for us manifesto is manifesto, it is a promise that we dedicated to the voters, it is not a bible, but a promise is still a promise that cannot be changed and for Sarawak we have to look at the new horizon,” he stressed.