KUCHING, April 10: Sarawak Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) chief Baru Bian opined that Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) MPs caused Sarawak and Sabah to miss a golden opportunity to restore their status.
The Works Minister also condemned GPS’ representatives for abstaining from voting when Parliament called for block voting to pass the Federal Constitution Article 1(2) Amendment Bill last night
“The golden opportunity to restore the status of Sabah and Sarawak has been dashed to the ground by the very Wakil Rakyat from GPS Sarawak and the Opposition from Sabah who don’t have the guts even to vote on the proposed amendment to Article 1(2) of the Federal Constitution tonight (last night).
“They will go down in history for failing to right the wrong done by our own YBs from Sarawak in 1976, with the exception of a few,” said the Works Minister in a statement last night.
He said he could not accept the argument put forth by GPS MPs, whose contention was that the amendment was not holistic.
“I feel sad and disappointed that these YBs failed to see the need to support this sincere attempt by PH (Pakatan Harapan) government to restore our status as clearly stated by the Honourable PM in his speech.
“To me, the excuse by the GPS YBs that this amendment is not holistic etc has no merit because the wordings of the proposed amendment is exactly the same as the original version in 1963,” he said.
PH government proposed the amendment on April 4. Forty-six MPs debated the Bill after it was tabled for second reading yesterday afternoon.
After the third reading, block voting was called but the Bill failed to pass as it could not garner the mandatory two-thirds majority support. — DayakDaily
