by DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, May 14: Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan has proposed an amendment to the Sarawak State Constitution to allow for the appointment of opposition leaders as non-constituency or members of the State Legislative Assembly (ADUN), in the interest of strengthening democratic representation.
In a press statement today, he highlighted that democracy is about representation, and as it is now, there is a lack of a strong opposition to ensure checks and balances against government policies.
He emphasised that in a democracy, the role of the opposition is important, not only for the purpose of checks and balances, but also to give ideas on how to improve the government for the benefit of the people and the State.
“Under parliamentary democracy, those who are in the government could not speak against their own government as it would be bad publicity for the government.
“To speak and to vote against own government of Bills tabled in the Legislature (DUN) may even cause the collapse of the elected government.
“Sarawak State government always have strong representation in the Sarawak Legislature. It seldom has less than two-thirds majority from the days of Barisan Nasional (BN) until now.
“This has caused the Legislature to always have weak representation from the opposition,” Voon shared.
To address this, he called for provisions to allow opposition leaders to be appointed as non-constituency or ADUNs, similar to systems practiced elsewhere.
“Singapore has non-constituency Members of Parliament and Sabah also has appointed ADUN members. Therefore, there is no reason that Sarawak should not follow,” he added. – DayakDaily
