‘DAP ignored past alliance with PAS when criticising GPS’

KUCHING: The Democratic Action Party (DAP) has helped make Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) the political force it is today, says Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) publicity and information secretary Adam Yii.

He said DAP should look at its own history before criticising the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) state coalition for cooperating with PAS under the Perikatan Nasional (PN) federal government.

“Before DAP criticises GPS’ cooperation with PAS under PN, DAP should first repent and apologise to the Chinese community for previously convincing them to give support to PAS which strengthened and made it stronger now,” he said in a statement.

He said GPS had already stressed the reason behind them working with PN was to form a politically stable government.

“Yet, DAP purposely misled the public and tried to ignore the fact of their previous cooperation with PAS,” he said.

In the past, Yii said DAP leaders had been protecting and supporting PAS, with DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang convincing the public that a vote for PAS was equivalent to a vote for DAP.

“PAS was a minority party before, but with the help from DAP, it becomes stronger and becomes the government of many states now,” said Yii, adding that DAP and PAS had formed an alliance under the now-dissolved Pakatan Rakyat.

He pointed out the state government’s stand was to reject any extremist and racist influences by exercising the state’s immigration autonomy to ban extremists from entering the state.

“We regret that DAP never voiced their opposition to former Kedah Menteri Besar Dato Mukhriz Mahathir’s proposal to abolish Sarawak immigration rights in Parliament,” said Yii, referring to Mukhriz’s comment in Parliament last year that it was “ridiculous” for Malaysians to use passport to travel to Sarawak.

Yii also said DAP was willing to cooperate with former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad after accusing him of being the most corrupt leader in the country, in order to take over Putrajaya and form the Pakatan Harapan-led federal government.

“This is the true nature of DAP, whereby they have no principle and own stands,” he said.

GPS secretary-general Datuk Alexander Nanta Linggi had said recently that GPS is now part of PN, after news broke that all MPs of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), Barisan Nasional (BN), PAS, GPS, Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (Start) had given their support for PN’s formation.

Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg previously said that GPS was joining the current federal government as ally to PN under the ‘PN Plus GPS’ formula.