KUCHING, Oct 15: Political observer Datuk Peter Minos expressed puzzlement over why Democratic Action Party (DAP) appears to be applying a double standard towards current issues affecting the country such as the crackdown on terrorism and budget spending.
He questioned the seeming discrepancy between DAP’s response towards the arrests of individuals for crimes such as terrorism and rape and the party’s response of ‘shout and protest’ over the arrests of its members for similar crimes.
“This is clearly double standard. This is also unacceptable for a political party that is part of the federal government,” according to Peter here today.
He pointed out that in the past when DAP was in the opposition, the party would relentlessly criticise the government for reducing funds for various projects.
“But now a DAP leader in the person of Lim Guan Eng, who leads the Ministry of Finance, is cutting funds to Sarawak on already approved roads and bridges and even to educational institutions like Unimas (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak) and that, to DAP, is perfectly alright.
“I just cannot understand DAP. It is behaving like (it is) playing with financial “terrorism” with its powers of controlling the national purse. Those whose well-being and future are adversely affected by Lim’s actions of cutting funds to them definitely felt hurt and “terrorised”.”
He also questioned why funds were not allocated to native custmary right (NCR) landowners in Sarawak in the budget.
“Abusing financial powers to the extreme and playing the fool with others’ lives with such powers are very bad. You can even say it is cruel. Even an act of sadism…”
On a separate issue, the former Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) information chief opined that because of Pakatan Harapan (PH)’s many policy U-turns, many people have predicted that it will be a one-term federal government.
“If, as many predict, the PH federal government is a one-term government, DAP in future will surely get a backlash. That can be expected. Now I can understand why many in the peninsula, are bitterly at odds with DAP.
“Perhaps that’s why PH is getting unpopular by the day with a public rating of only 35 per cent, down from 80 per cent in May 2018.
“As for us here in Sarawak, I think Sarawakians would give maybe 25 per cent at the most,” Peter added. — DayakDaily
