SARAWAKIANS SHOULD LEARN FROM SABAH

By : LUKE RINTOD

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah State Reform Party (STAR) chief Jeffrey Kitingan has defended his call to Sarawakians to support local instead of peninsula-based parties, saying he meant well for Sarawak after Sabah’s own experience with outsider party.

“I wanted to share with Sarawak, Sabah’s own experience with Umno’s colonisation in the state so that what happened to Sabah would not happen to Sarawak in the future,” he said in response to Sarawak PKR leader Baru Bian’s response that the former’s call was confusing Sarawakians.

Jeffrey, who is also chairman of NGO United Borneo Front (UBF), clarified that his “support local party” call has nothing to do with Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud.

Speaking exclusively to FMT here, Jeffrey stressed that what he meant was that (a) local party would be the best vehicle for Sarawak and Sabah.

“I admire Taib’s resolute stand not to allow Umno coming into Sarawak. The moment the people there supported (an) outsider party over local, they would lose their autonomy.

“I have a message to Taib too, that is the Sarawak local parties under BN right now should be open to work with whoever Sarawak is more comfortable with after the coming general election.

“It doesn’t mean I am asking the people of Sarawak to support BN, not at all, but that local parties would be the best and ideal vehicle,” he said.

He said his message was clear and that is to empower the people in the two states and never to surrender their franchise under any threat.

He said sometimes this ‘franchise’ comes masquerading as offer to help or empower them by outsider political parties or leaders.

“Just look at Sabah, the moment Umno came in place of a local party, Kuala Lumpur started calling the shots, making the state government powerless on Sabah’s destiny until the state leaders were mere puppets of outsiders. And now Sabah is the poorest state with a myriad of KL-made problems,” he said.

Rumours of a Taib-Jeffrey tie

Jeffrey also qualified his call to support local party with caution to only support leaders with good governance records.

“The people of Sarawak are in a position of control of their own destiny and they should never ever allow an outsider party to overlord them, and later colonise them, lest what happened in Sabah happens to Sarawak too,” he said.

During his recent visit to Sarawak, Jeffrey advised Sarawakians not to support peninsula-based Pakatan Rakyat (PR) but instead to give their backing to local parties.

It was also reported that his comment ‘confirmed’ rumours that Jeffrey had met Taib and that the duo could be in a symbiotic alliance to thwart Pakatan, and also leverage with the current central power under Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak who was said to be keen to have his own loyalist -candidates in Sarawak.

Meanwhile the strongest political parties in Sarawak are all under Taib’s influence. They are BN component parties – Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu, Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP).

A new party, Sarawak Workers’ Party (SWP) led by a Taib favourite, Larry Sng, is also said to be within Taib’s influence. (FMT)