Chong Chieng Jen
KUCHING: Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Chong Chieng Jen said yesterday that Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg “is just finding excuse to oppose the constitutional amendment Bill” tabled in Parliament on Thursday.
The Democratic Action Party (DAP) lawmaker said the Chief Minister’s statement “is full of indications of a man who is trying to find a way out from his initial statement to support an amendment to Article 1(2)”.
“In his four-page statement, there is no mention of the wordings of Article 1(2) proposed by the PH (Pakatan Harapan) government. No fault was found in the drafting of the amendment presented in Parliament.
“Yet, he is now raising a new point, that is the need to amend Article 160 of the Constitution. All along, attention, discussions and comments were only focused on Article 1(2),” he said in a statement, responding to Abang Johari’s comments on the proposed amendment.
Chong said Article 160 was brought up only when the PH government took the first step to restore Sabah and Sarawak to their initial status by amending Article 1(2).
“When the PH government is still having the lengthy discussion on the devolution of power, the GPS (Gabungan Parti Sarawak) people complain that nothing was done and that the PH government is not sincere.
“When the PH government took the first step to submit the amendment to restore Sarawak and Sabah to their initial status, the GPS complains that they want a holistic amendment,” he said.
He said what GPS “is now asking the PH to do is for the PH government to also amend something that has been there since 1963”.
He thus asked what the Barisan Nasional (BN) and the GPS parties had been doing over a period of 44 years (from 1974 to 2018) if that (what GPS is now asking) was so essential.
“There are thus two conclusions that I can draw from Abang Johari’s statement, namely (1) There is nothing wrong in the drafting of Article1(2) as proposed by the PH government, and (2) GPS is more interested in playing up this devolution of power issue to gain political mileage,” asserted Chong.
He opined that the reason to the second conclusion was clear since any constitutional amendment that restored Sarawak to its initial rightful position would prove the wrong done by BN to Sarawak all these decades.
“GPS being part of BN will have no way of exonerating themselves from the blame. If Warisan which is a Sabah-based party which is also not in PH can accept the Bill, there is no reason why Sarawak cannot accept,” he added.