BN’s claims that voting for ‘Team Adenan’ is to defend Sarawak rights & autonomy clearly a myth following Multimedia And Communications Minister Salleh Said Keruak’s admission that Tan Sri Adenan is appointed as Sarawak Chief Mnister by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak. If that is the case then Tan Sri Adenan is beholden to the Prime Minister more than to anyone and he ‘owes’ the Prime Minister for his appointment as Sarawak Chief Minister.
Tan Sri Adenan has returned the favour to Najib by supporting the implementation of GST in Sarawak and directing all BN Sarawak MPs to vote for the GST bill in Parliament. So confident is Najib of Adenan’s undivided and loyal for support for him, that Najib can reject Sarawak’s request for an increase in oil royalties from 5% to 20% at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting. No wonder the Prime Minister is going all out to ensure a landslide victory for ‘Team Adenan’, because ‘Team Adenan’ is actually ‘Team Najib’, even holding the weekly Cabinet meeting in Kuching yesterday.
It is therefore untrue and dishonest for Tan Sri Adenan to claim that the Sarawak state general elections is not about the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal, GST or Najib’s RM2.6 billion donation in his personal bank account. Sarawakian voters should therefore consider carefully that in voting for ‘Team Adenan’, they are also getting ‘Team Najib’ – buy one get one free.
Sarawakians cannot trust this Siamese twins of ‘Team Najib/Adenan’ with absolute victories that would lead to absolute powers, in view of the poor record of abusing their powers,especially land scandals of selling thousands of acres of land at only RM300 per acre, not to ordinary Sarawakians but to “well-connected” personalities. For this reason voting in a strong DAP team to deny BN its 2/3 majority is crucial towards protecting the rights of Sarawak from being bullied by this Siamese twins of “Team Najib/Adenan’.
Tan Sri Adenan Satem has returned the favour to Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak for appointing him as Sarawak Chief Minister by supporting the GST and accepting that oil royalties for Sarawak will not be increased from 5% to 20%. Voting in Team Najib/Adenan would mean accepting paying GST, supporting oil royalties not increased to 20% and even endorsing all the land and financial scandals like RM50 billion 1MDB and RM 2.6 billion donation scandals.
Najib is not only deceiving the public but also himself when he claimed that holding such a Cabinet meeting in Kuching, is nothing extraordinary because each minister has responsibilities at the state level. If that is the case, then why are Cabinet meetings not held in every state? Why only hold Cabinet meetings in Kuching during the period of the Sarawak state general elections but not on other ordinary occasions?
In response, Najib said “If the opposition wants to make this an issue, I wish to remind their leaders like Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, that he has no powers outside Penang but is here only for campaigning purposes.” I do not know why Najib wishes to make an issue of my presence in Sarawak when I openly say I come to campaign for the 31 DAP candidates contesting in Sarawak. I have never held my weekly state Cabinet(EXCO) meetings outside Penang and definitely never in Kuching.
I have also never hidden the fact that I am in Sarawak to conduct legitimate political activity as provided for under Section 67 of the Immigration Act. However, despite exercising my legal rights in conducting legitimate political activity, a Chief Minister from Penang is only allowed to be in Sarawak until 5 May and barred from remaining in Sarawak until voting day on 7 May 2016. This abuse of power is an indicator that Adenan is behaving no different from Najib in his willingness to abuse his power that even his predecessor never did.