KUCHING, Oct 29: Gabungan Parti Sarawak’s (GPS) manifesto for the 15th General Election (GE15) will be the same as the last Sarawak Election in which focus will be put on ‘Sarawak First’.
Premier of Sarawak Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg said that at the same time, it would also emphasise managing Sarawak towards the new economy based on the strengths of the State.
“Efforts in pursuing rights as enshrined in Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) and the Inter-Governmental (IGC) Report will also continue.
“In the past (for parliamentary election), we used the Barisan Nasional (BN) manifesto with some addition of Sarawak’s perspective. But for GE15, this will be GPS’ first major general electoral outing on our own,” he told a local media organisation in an exclusive interview recently.
Abang Johari, who is also GPS chairman, reiterated that GPS must have close cooperation with the Federal government to ensure the push for Sarawak’s priorities through real actions.
“That’s why we had great success through our (caretaker) Minister Dato Sri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) in the amendment of the Malaysian Constitution, which among other things, had restored the original agreement in that Malaysia is a combination of three regions under Article 1(2) of the Constitution.
“Most importantly is Article 160 on the interpretation of the Federation to include MA63 and IGC Report, apart from the Federation of Malaya Agreement 1957,” he said.
These matters, Abang Johari added, become the basis of the Malaysia Constitution, with matters bound in MA63 must be fulfilled as “it is the core of our foundation”. — DayakDaily
