BN COMPONENT POLITICAL GIMMICK?

By : DATUK DR. JEFFREY KITINGAN

“BY TAKING a pot-shot at Pakatan Rakyat’s support of the calls by the various Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties for the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants and ‘Project IC’ in Sabah as political gimmick, the Chief Minister also means by implication that the calls by the BN components for the RCI are also a political gimmick to fish for votes in the forthcoming General Elections,” opined Datuk Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, the founder of United Borneo Front (UBF).

It has to be remembered and reminded that the issue of illegal immigrants being granted ICs and MyCards and allowed to vote in Sabah is not a fictitious matter but a proven fact established in a Court of law and supported by statements and admissions by several prominent persons in Sabah as well as the arrests of politicians and several Immigration officers under the ISA.

Perhaps, the Chief Minister has a memory gap of the intervening years of the occurrence of ‘Project IC’ in Sabah or he has a convenient ‘loss of memory’ because of his vested connection with the Project as he was named by several parties as being directly involved in ‘Project IC’ and the recruitment of the new IC holders as UMNO members.

In addition, most of these ‘new’ Malaysian citizens straight away becomes ‘Melayu’ in Sabah and are heaped with all sorts of goodies, privileges and benefits which are denied to the genuine natives or native bumiputras who remain poor, down-trodden and marginalized.

To add salt to the wound, many of these ‘Melayu baru’ are not even considered ‘natives’ under the Sabah Constitution. To those who also ‘qualify’ as ‘natives’ they are better off compared to their poor Bajau, Suluk, Bisaya and others cousins who are original descendants and natives in Sabah.

The Chief Minister’s comments adds further credence to the comments by several political observers that the calls for the RCI by BN components and the Parliamentary Select Committee are just ploys and political gimmick to misled the voters into voting for BN again in the forthcoming 13th General Elections.

On a separate note, the Chief Minister’s reply to the call by UPKO Secretary-General for additional Parliamentary seats for Sabah and Sarawak to make up 34% shows that the Chief Minister is avoiding or not taking seriously the call by UPKO. Instead of taking up on the call by UPKO for additional Parliament seats, the Chief Minister refers to mere discussion and diverted attention by also referring to allocation of existing seats by the BN components.

Does these comments by the Chief Minister also mean the beginning of the end of Sabah’s rights and the entrenchment of Sabah as the 12th or 13th State, equal to Perlis or Malacca, and remain as the poorest in Malaysia where 40% of all poor in Malaysia reside?