DAP man slams SUPP's 'shallow' understanding of Harapan S'wak manifesto

In what seems to be a round-for-round brouhaha over Pakatan Harapan’s election manifesto, DAP’s Dr Kelvin Yii says the youth and women’s wings of Sarawak United People’s Party have a shallow understanding of the manifesto offered by Harapan Sarawak for the 14th general election.

In a response to SUPP’s earlier description of Harapan’s manifesto as bogus, populist and one that only offers lip service, Yii told Malaysiakini in a Whatsapp message late last night that SUPP should stop playing to the gallery and refrain from being self-deceiving.

Yii, who is special assistant to DAP's Bandar Kuching MP Chong Chieng Jen, said it was ironic that SUPP was projecting itself as the party that will be able to earn Sarawak a complete devolution of power from the central government.

He claimed this was because SUPP had yet to deliver on the same promise made since the state election two years ago.  

“In the 2016 state election, SUPP championed itself as being the party that will be able to claim the rights of Sarawakians, but that promise only remains a promise, although they are the ruling government of the day,” he added.

Sloganeering

“Today SUPP is sloganeering again. But nothing new, just old slogans recycled to hoodwink Sarawakians with a skewed perception that the BN federal government will be able to negotiate better with a stronger representation.   

“BN already has 72 out of 82 state seats won in 2016, which is about 88 percent of the total number of seats, but yet little has been done.

“This again shows the reluctance and insincerity of the BN government even though they have every authority and all the apparatus at their disposal to do so,” Yii (photo) added.

Yii said he would like to remind SUPP that on top of the 20 percent oil royalty that Harapan is offering direct to the state, the coalition is also offering full autonomy in both education and healthcare.

Fiscal devolution

He also said Harapan has pledged in its manifesto a 50 percent return on tax collected from Sarawak back to Sarawak.

“That is clearly the needed fiscal devolution for our state to run those critical departments and take hold of our education and healthcare in the state.

“It will also help fund our autonomous powers including education, where we will have full control of the hiring of teachers, decision on syllabus, infrastructure development and even the setting up of English schools in the state.

“This is full autonomy unlike the ambiguous move to appoint Michael Manyin as the Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research and yet education matters in the state is still under the Federal government,” added Yii.

He said the supposed claim that Sarawak already has full ownership of its oil resources is dependent on the state government’s willingness to either challenge both the Petroleum Development Act 1974 (PDA) and Territorial Sea Act 2012 (TSA) in a court of law to declare it unconstitutional, or move a ministerial motion as the ruling government to amend or repeal those laws.

“Until a motion is passed, these are still valid laws, and even Kho Teck Wan(SUPP women’s wing chief)reaffirmed that all we have is full regulatory authority over the upstream and downstream aspect of our oil and gas industry.

“Ownership and regulatory powers are two different things and should not be used as a political tool to continue to mislead the people,” he said.

Institutional reforms

Yii pointed out that Harapan’s manifesto included institutional reforms, such as limiting the powers of the prime minister as well as empowering institutions like the Election Commission, MACC and the Attorney-General’s Chambers to reduce political interference from the executive and thus strengthen their independence.

“These are critical reforms to halt the cancer in our country which is corruption and blatant abuse of power by the executive.”

With good governance and anti-corruption measures in place, Yii said Harapan could afford to continue BR1M on top of other people-centric policies even with the abolishment of the GST.

He emphasised that the real test of Harapan’s sincerity would be for the people to give Harapan the chance to come into power, and then judge it on its ability to deliver results.

“As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, votes us in, allow us to implement our policies and let the people judge us,” he added. -Mkini