'Adenan’s leadership, federal-state tie-up led to polls victory'

The leadership of Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem and the good collaboration between the federal and state governments are the two main factors that ensured the BN's outstanding victory in the recently concluded state election, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said.

The collaboration had allowed a lot of unthinkable things to happen, including the construction of the Pan-Borneo Highway, which had helped convince the Sarawak voters to vote for BN, Najib said.

"The Pan-Borneo Highway is a federal government project and it has a huge impact on Sarawak. There are more projects that I can mention, one by one.

"The people of Sarawak can see this. They can see that if they want development, if they want their infrastructure agenda to be achieved and if they want to bring Sarawak to greater heights, they need a state government which has a good and close relations with the federal government," he said.

The prime minister said this in the 'Exclusive With Prime Minister' programme hosted by Sayed Munawar Sayed Mohd Mustar, which was telecast live on TV1 last night in conjunction with 70th anniversary of Umno, which falls today.

The 1,090km Pan-Borneo Highway is expected to be fully operational by early 2023.

Najib, who is BN chairperson, said even though Umno was not in Sarawak, BN partners, such as Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) and other component parties, already had a strong foundation in the state.

"And they are our partners in BN, so the victory in Sarawak is important as it gave us a fresh breath or momentum for the coming 14th general election.

BN won 72 out of 82 seats contested in the 11th state election last Saturday.

Commenting further, Najib said a large portion of the Sarawak population had wanted to see Sarawak to remain in Malaysia and did not wish to get out of the country.

"What they wanted was for us to see whether state powers reflected in the understanding, written or unwritten at the time of independence, were accidentally taken by the federal government, and if so, then we should consider returning the powers to Sarawak," he added.

- Bernama