SAPP Youth: DAP talking like Umno

 KOTA KINABALU, June 8, 2011: "Sabah DAP is talking more and more like UMNO because they think that DAP is now very strong like UMNO and can look down on others", said SAPP youth chief Edward Dagul today. 

"Sabah DAP thinks that victory in the next general elections is guaranteed. For instance, at the DAP Chinese Kaamatan celebration last month, DAP had boasted publicly that "only Pakatan and NOBODY ELSE can take on the BN", said Edward. 

"To the ears of an ex-BN component party like SAPP, that kind of boastful talk reminded SAPP of the BN days when UMNO displayed the same kind of arrogance, that without UMNO, the component parties of the BN cannot win. This kind of irritating boasts reminds Sabahans of the superior mentality of bosses from Kuala Lumpur who think they can come and talk down to Sabahans as they wish," added Edward.

"Sadly, a young person like Junz Wong has fallen so quickly into the "inferiority complex" to blindly follow KL. But SAPP youths believe that we Sabahans deserve respect as equal partners with Malaya in upholding the autonomy of Sabah in Malaysia.

"DAP has suddenly claimed that a local party cannot govern Sabah without being a member of the Pakatan if Pakatan captures Putrajaya. This is the same tune sung by UMNO and the BN. This is the same type of promises made by KL to Sabahans in 1990 when UMNO first came to Sabah. This is exactly the type of reasoning that the then UMNO deputy president, Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim (now PR de facto leader) had used to bring SAPP into the BN in 1994. This is the same type of promises made to Sabah and Sarawak before the two territories agreed to form Malaysia in 1963 after Brunei has opted out from the formation of Malaysia.

"But, before the March 2008 general elections, there was little that Sabah could do because Malaysian politics was dominated by UMNO in the KL-centric government. After the general elections of March 2008, it became a new political reality that no party can form the Federal government without winning Sabah and Sarawak. The power equation has thus changed to favour the two Borneo states. Hence, Sabahans at last saw a window of opportunity for Sabah to reset the button on Malaysia and revive the struggle to enforce the spirit and letter of the Malaysia Agreement as true Malaysians.

If it is true that the state government must belong to the same national alliance like the PR or BN, then Junz Wong should tell us whether the Penang State government today is in the same party as the BN Federal government. Or is the DAP paving its way to join BN after the coming general elections? Or has the Kelantan State Government been part of the BN ever since 1990 when PAS first took over the Kelantan?

"SAPP rejects any notion that Sabahans are subservient to politicians in KL.

It is not too much to want mutual respect instead of subservience. SAPP wants State-Federal co-operation, not state-federal collusion. We view the so-called two parties system of BN and PR as merely "two parties, one system" with KL controlling everything. We see as dangerous the DAP’s view of the "Sarawak two parties system" consisting of the Chinese opposition on one side and a Bumiputra government on the other. Is this what DAP wants to happen in Sabah? It is time for DAP leaders like Jimmy Wong Sze Phin to speak up.

"We reject the politics of divide and rule of Sabah by KL as what is happening in the Sabah BN and UMNO with the non-stop bickering among their leaders to the pleasure of their political masters in KL.

With due respect to Pakatan Rakyat, we reserve our comments on the Sabah Pakatan which has yet to form a committee in Sabah.