As President of Parti Bumi Kenyalang, I am making this special appeal to all voters in Sarawak to vote for our Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) candidates who are contesting in this 15th General Elections. PBK is only contesting in four seats. These seats are the seat of Bandar Kuching, Stampin, Lanang and Mas Gading. Contesting for Bandar Kuching is myself, Voon Lee Shan. Lue Cheng Hing is contesting for Stampin and Priscilla Lau for Lanang seats while Ryan Sim Min Leong is contesting for Mas Gading seat.

Except for Ryan Sim Min Leong who is contesting under our PBK symbol the three of us are contesting under Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) symbol.

Voters are reminded that there is no equality of representation in parliament. Malaya is controlling 166 out of 222 seats in parliament. Sarawak is given 31 while Sabah is given 25 seats only.

Voters may need to know that DAP is from Malaya and Sarawak is separated from Malaya by the huge South China Sea and we in Sarawak, do not have many things that are the same with Malaya.

Therefore, DAP being from Malaya should be treated as an alien. It has to be seen that a vote for DAP is a vote for Malaya. A seat won by DAP is a seat won by Malaya and if DAP win seats here, the voice of Sarawak will be dimmer in parliament and the seats won here is taken by Malaya. DAP is serve the interest of Malaya first, not Sarawak. For this reason, despite the promises made, DAP ignored to fulfill their 20% oil royalty for Sarawak. Under parliamentary democracy system, members of parliament (MPs) elected under DAP from Sarawak have to listen and obey their party bosses in Malaya. Under the rule of parliamentary democracy, if they fail to obey their party bosses they have to be sacked or leave the party, in which, they could not afford.

DAP will not take any step in parliament to revoke Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), the Petroleum Development Act 1974(PDA74), the Territorial Seas Act and Continental Shelf Act so that rights lost to the federal government could be restored.

Voters need to be informed that there could be possibility that DAP in the words of its Secretary General, Anthony Loke, will not rule out collaboration with UMNO as anything is possible in politics – see FMT 7 August, 2022. Therefore, a vote for DAP would unwittingly be a vote for UMNO to be back in power.

Voters need to be reminded too that Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) was previously known as Barisan Nasional Sarawak but after Barisan National lost in the last general elections, they changed their name to GPS. Therefore, GPS is in fact, Barisan Nasional Sarawak. A vote for GPS is also a vote in support for Malaya because GPS had always aligned themselves with UMNO since Malaysia came into existence. Voters should fear that GPS may help UMNO to return to power in these elections because GPS never rejected UMNO despite the fact that many UMNO leaders are riddled with corruption cases.

Even if GPS is part of the federal government, by the rule of parliamentary democracy, GPS will not be able to act independently from the decision of the federal cabinet, which will be controlled by ministers from Malaya. It is for this reason, there had been no attempt to revoke the Malaysia Agreement 1963(MA63) so that Sarawak could regain her nation status again. Like DAP, they are under the control of the bosses in Malaya. With that, there will be no likelihood that GPS will revoke MA63 and the Petroleum Development Act 1974 (PDA74) so that Sarawak can be restored back as a nation and also to take back her oil and gas resources from Petronas.

Sarawakians should recall Sarawak lost its oil and gas resources during the time of Tun Rahman Yakub, who at that time was the chief minister of Sarawak. He was also from Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), and PBB is the backbone of BN-GPS. This created doubts whether BN-GPS will be able to safeguard the rights of Sarawak first. BN-GPS slogan of Sarawak First, in fact, is Malaya First, because all revenues collected by the federal government department and from oil and gas have to go to the federal coffers first, not kept by Sarawak first, before being taken by the federal government. It is observed that after all these revenues were taken by federal government or Malaya first, only a small part of these revenues be returned back to Sarawak in annual budget. Yearly, it is speculated that, Sarawak contributed not less than RM100 billion ringgit in revenue to the federal coffers, but, what Sarawak used to get back was always below RM5 billion as annual budget.

Voters should see evidence we had in the past was that DAP and BN-GPS was not capable to protect and restore Sarawak rights lost to the federation.

With all problems Sarawak faced from the federal government and from Malaya, the solution for Sarawakians is to vote for Parti Bumi Kenyalang candidates because we are prepared to file private members motions in parliament to revoke MA63 and PDA74 so that Sarawak will restore all her rights, including to restore Sarawak to its original status as a country.

VOON LEE SHAN
President