Current issues that are hotly debated in West Malaysia will not have a significant impact on the Sarawak elections due in April, said Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem
He said the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and RM2.6bil political donation have nothing to do with Sarawak.
“I don’t even know what exactly is going on there,” Adenan said in an interview with Sin Chew Daily.
“The opposition always associate these issues with Sarawak, arguing that supporting Adenan is akin to supporting Najib (Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak),” said Adenan.
“As a matter of fact, these issues have nothing to do with Sarawak, or me, in any way,” he said.
Adenan said he wanted to be a chief minister for all Sarawakians irrespective of race and religion, and everyone must be treated equally and with respect, including the indigenous people.
He said he was very unhappy that some Sarawakians had not been accorded equal treatment by the Federal government.
“We are different from West Malaysia. Here we have many different ethnic groups but we are all equal. My policies involve all ethnic groups in the state, not any particular one,” he said.
With an election now looming the Chief Minister is desperately distancing himself from Najib. In his shoes who wouldn’t? But, it won’t wash.
Is this not the same Najib, after all, that Satem has been seen greeting so eagerly and defending all through the past year when other West Malaysian and Sabah senior BN politicians were expressing concern over 1MDB?
Only now that the stink has become international and undeniable in the public mind as votes are about to be cast, does Satem want to back track, it appears.
And, to say the 1MDB/ RM2.6 bn scandal has nothing to do with Sarawak rather ignores the central admission by Najib and his spinners (quoted even on the BBC) that the money in the PM’s account had been “donated” in order to buy votes in Sarawak in the General Election!
In fact Najib’s central excuse for taking this money has been that he needed it to illegally pervert the democratic process in Sarawak’s tiny rural seats.
And sure enough, it has been those rotten seats that have over the past year kept Najib in position. PBB members have enough numbers now in BN to have turfed him out, but Adenan’s block has protected the PM from the consequences of his 1MDB/RM2.6 bn scandal all year.
In this manner, Sarawak/ Sabah’s paid for rural seats have not just become BN’s ‘safe deposit’, gerrymandering them back into office against the popular vote, but Najib’s personal safe deposit within BN, thanks to Adenan and his party.
No wonder Adenan and Najib have worked hand in glove to create another 11 of those handy seats (split into even tinier sizes against the huge unreformed urban electorates, which are ten times bigger) just to cement their deposit this time around.
As for the claim about all people in Sarawak being equal – how come the indigenous Dayak races have virtually no visible presence in so many of those cushy administrative jobs reserved by Satem’s State Government for Melanau and Muslims?
PBB is UMNO’s agent governing Sarawak. It is as simple as this and has always been so.