KUCHING, March 29: If GPS government is a kingbeggar, what is PH Sarawak which at one time was begging for GPS’ support so that PH government may stay in power?
This is the question posed by Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) Backbenchers’ Club when rebutting Pakatan Harapan (PH) Sarawak chief Chong Chieng Jen who had on yesterday’s (March 28, 2021) Facebook live said GPS government which claimed itself to be a “kingmaker” was actually “kingbeggar”.
“Chong in his now-too-often outbursts against the Sarawak government has ignored the facts when rallying his support base to create a negative perception of the state-federal relationship between GPS and Perikatan Nasional (PN).
“In his choice of words to use ‘kingbeggar’, we would like to remind him that it was him, in fact, who begged GPS to support PH to keep them in power in the political turmoil on Feb 29, 2020.
“It was PH Sarawak, especially the DAP, despite the many attacks against GPS and their neglect of Sarawak interests during their stint at the federal government, begged Sarawakians to continue to be sidelined just because they wanted their Malayan bosses to remain in power.
“And now, to say that we are beggars, we would like to ask him this: What does this make you?” asked GPS Backbenchers’ Club in a statement today.
The club also pointed out that for all Chong’s valiant efforts to spin the issues of Batang Lupar Bridge project and the use of the word ‘Allah’, these issues could and should have been resolved during PH’s time as federal government.
The PH coalition consisting of Democratic Action Party (DAP), Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) as well as Parti Pribumi Malaysia Bersatu (Bersatu) took over the government in May 2018 after the 14th General Election but lost it to PN coalition which is made up by Bersatu, United Malaysia National Organisation (UMNO) in Feb 2020.
Meanwhile, the club also questioned why PH government did not see through the immediate implementation of Undi18 which was passed on July 2019 and why the PH government did not give Election Commission (EC) the resources needed to make sure that the policy was implemented then.
On the issue of vaccine procurement, the GPS Backbenchers’ Club rebutted Chong that the Sarawak government never said it does not need to rely on the federal government for vaccines.
“What it said was that it will buy its own vaccines to complement the supply from the federal government. It is a widely known fact that Covid-19 vaccines are in short supply worldwide, hence the need to procure different types of vaccines from different manufacturers and also get bigger supply allocation from vaccines procured by the federal government,” said the Backbenchers’ Club.
It stressed that the GPS government will continue to put the interests of Sarawak first, be it in delivering infrastructure development, defending Sarawak’s rights, empowering the youths and ensure that Sarawak recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic. — DayakDaily
