Raymond Tiong
SIBU (Sept 22): The dominance of a single party over the administration of Malaysia in the past 60 years is to blame for the alleged poverty in Sarawak and Sabah, a Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) Bukit Assek leader said.
The branch treasurer, Raymond Tiong, said Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) deputy president Rafizi Ramli was wrong to accuse the leaders of Sarawak and Sabah for causing the poverty in their states.
“The two Borneo states are deprived of utilising their own resources due to the injustice and unfair policies enforced on us by the federal government, hence causing poverty in the two states,” he said in a statement.
Tiong, a Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) councilor, was commenting on Rafizi’s claim recently that the poverty in Sabah and Sarawak was due to leaders who were in cahoots with the leaders in Malaya when it came to the distribution of the nation’s wealth.
Rafizi also said corruption and embezzlement occurred because many scrambled to become politicians because that was the way to wealth.
Tiong described Rafizi’s comments as superficial and without justification and that he tried to use corruption to cover up the wrongdoings and the longstanding political bully by the one-party dominance on the two Borneo states.
“This one-party dominance has taken away the rights of the two Borneo states, hence causing poverty and depriving us of enjoying what is supposed to belong to us,” he said without naming the party in question.
However, since the last state election, Tiong said the political standing of Sarawak has improved.
He pointed out that earlier this year, the Sarawak Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) passed constitutional amendments and changed the title of Chief Minister to Premier which caused quite a stir among the people but few politicians were against the change.
“What did this prove? It proved that with a bigger mandate from the people, the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) government will have a bigger clout and greater power to bring about changes, especially in taking back our rights from the federal government,” he said.
He said with the different status, it also helped enhance Sarawak’s image abroad.
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Adding on, Tiong said Sarawak was no longer bound by Barisan Nasional’s consensus decision-making, noting that the state had gained more leverage to pursue its priorities with the federal government.
Currently, he said GPS is not affiliated to any Malaya party and is not dictated by Perikatan Nasional, the federal ruling-coalition.
“GPS’s relationship with PN is just based on a friendly status and not as a partner of PN. Hopefully, the people will continue to support the GPS government and ensure that it will record a landslide win in the coming election to increase its political clout,” he said.
GPS was formed following the collapse of the BN government in the 2018 general election.