My comments on the suggestion for Perikatan Na­sional (PN), Barisan Na­sional (BN) and Gabun­gan Parti Sarawak (GPS) to have to sign a for­mal char­ter together

There has been a lot of talks on the suggestion for Perikatan Na­sional (PN), Barisan Na­sional (BN) and Gabun­gan Parti Sarawak (GPS) to have to sign a for­mal char­ter for the coming General Elections. To my opinion and response,  there is no need for us todo that because it would only show there is dis­trust among the three coali­tions. I have mentioned to our Media friends that GPS saw no rea­son for the three en­ti­ties to af­firm sup­port to each other through a for­mal char­ter, adding that GPS has al­ways been friendly with both PN and BN through their com­ing to­gether to form the fed­eral govern­ment.

To me, a for­mal char­ter like that among good friends is not nec­es­sary. It’s just like a mar­ried cou­ple – after mar­riage there is no need for the hus­band and wife to sign an­other for­mal agree­ment. We are al­ready close to each other. We have set up the govern­ment to­gether and we al­ready have a good un­der­stand­ing with each other. The mo­ment you sign a for­mal char­ter only re­flects that you don’t trust each other. So you don’t have to sign it.

I was com­ment­ing on the pro­posal which suggested last Fri­day by PN sec­re­tary-gen­eral Datuk Seri Hamzah Zain­ud­din for PN, BN and GPS to ink a for­mal char­ter of po­lit­i­cal un­der­stand­ing to en­sure they jointly con­test the next gen­eral elec­tion. Datuk Seri Hamzah, who is also sec­re­tary­gen­eral of Parti Pribumi Ber­satu Malaysia (Ber­satu), said the sign­ing of a char­ter would give the peo­ple con­fi­dence that the three en­ti­ties were po­lit­i­cally sta­ble and ca­pa­ble of gov­ern­ing the coun­try, and en­sure that they would con­tinue to rule in the next term while also tak­ing over the Op­po­si­tion states.

Com­ment­ing fur­ther, I have said that PN, BN and GPS should in­stead nur­ture the good re­la­tion­ship they have been hav­ing since tak­ing over Putrajaya from Pakatan Hara­pan. I have also pointed out that GPS has no in­ten­tion of field­ing can­di­dates in the penin­sula in the next gen­eral elec­tion – an­other rea­son why there was no need to sign any char­ter with PN and BN.

You (PN and BN) don’t have to worry about us (con­test­ing in Penin­su­lar Malaysia). If there is any­thing to worry about, it’s you want­ing to come to our state and then con­test­ing in our state which Sarawakians are not very happy about. The main rea­son why GPS was formed was so that Sarawak will be ad­min­is­tered by Sarawak’s own par­ties and lead­ers. With the main theme and slo­gan of ‘Sarawak First’, GPS wants to look after the state the way Sarawakians want it to.

You (PN and BN) look after your re­gion, we look after ours. But we will re­main friendly to each other be­cause we want to see a sta­ble fed­eral govern­ment. That is the rea­son why we sup­port PN. Not to say we are tak­ing ad­van­tage, but we want to see a sta­ble govern­ment whereby the econ­omy can de­velop and bloom.