Ching Yong vows to fight for Sarawak to become nation’s first autonomous territory

SIBU: Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) candidate for Lanang, Wong Ching Yong, says he would fight for Sarawak to become the first autonomous administrative territory in Malaysia, should he be elected as member of Parliament.

His argument is that such territorial status would allow Sarawak to have immediate control over all the privileges as proposed during the formation of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) such as education, public health, finance, taxation, land, fisheries, petroleum, as well as posts in government service.

“By then, we’d no longer be affected by the West Malaysian political infightings, and this would truly mean self-autonomy and freedom for all Sarawakians,” he said in a press conference yesterday.

Stressing further, Wong pointed out that he ‘did not pluck things from out of the blue’ with regard to his pledge to fight for the autonomous territory status, in that the proposal was based on the views obtained from his legal team headed by former Sibu Bar Council chairman, George Lim.

Wong said this team carried out two weeks’ worth of intensive research into the subject.

According to Victor Lau, who is a member of Wong’s legal team, in the UK, Ireland and Scotland are known as autonomous administrative divisions, whereas in relation to Wong’s proposal, Sarawak would be known as an ‘autonomous administrative territory’.

“There are two ways to get back the rights under MA63. As far as I know, what Malaysia is doing now – they have formed the MA63 Special Commi ee to negotiate with the governments of Sabah and Sarawak in trying to look into what are the rights to be returned (to Sabah and Sarawak).

“Another way, he (Wong) will fight for Sarawak to be declared an autonomous administrative territory, and when this happens, you will have autonomy over privileges (proposed during the formation of MA63),” said Victor.