GPS has to ditch racialbased politics to win election, opines former journalist
KUCHING: Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) has to ditch racial-based politics and other malpractices such as rent-seeking to win the next state election, suggested a former journalist Ng Chek Yong.
He said GPS must be different from Barisan Nasional (BN) rather than inheriting the BN style with a new name.
“They should learn from the lesson of the May 9 election. People are unhappy with the corrupt practices of the previous government particularly the dominating side of Umno.
“A state cabinet minister even raised this issue before, saying that GPS may lose the coming election if it does not strike a balance in terms of power and allocation of seats.
“It does not take a genius to figure that PBB (Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu) is the Sarawak version of Umno while other GPS coalition parties are the Sarawak version of MCA and Gerakan,” he said at a forum organised by the Sarawak Culture Research Institute Society at a restaurant here yesterday.
Ng said the current leadership of Sarawak government should follow in the footsteps of former chief minister the late Pehin Sri Adenan Satem, who implemented a lot of people-centric policies and opened up opportunities for all.
He pointed out that Sarawak exercises some state’s rights and GPS should put this to their advantage to benefit all Sarawakians.
For example, he said the Sarawak government could have come up with more policies or assistance programmes to help the needy group in the state.
“Assistance should be offered for all those who are in need instead of making it racial-based. In Sarawak, not only are the Dayaks poor but some Chinese are poor too.”
Ng asserted that GPS must tell Sarawakians what they are fighting for in terms of state’s rights before the people make up their mind in the next election, which is due in 2021.
He said while Sarawakians could compare the performance of both Pakatan Harapan (PH) and GPS, if both coalitions failed to meet their standard, they would end up choosing the better one between the two bad apples.
He also lamented about the economic policies of the nation, saying that the government did not offer approaches to enable the people to have more cakes but stepping in to share the existing cakes.
He added that such situation might continue for as long as the government of the day did not have the political will to root out cronyism.