Enjoy the ride, for you’ll be gone soon enough, Sarawak minister tells Pakatan lawmakers
(MMO) – With just two days more to its first anniversary in power, Pakatan Harapan (PH) is performing poorly as a federal government, Sarawak Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said today.
He said the euphoria of winning the 14th general election (GE14) is not over yet with PH, but to the people, a lot of things have changed since.
He said indicators of the poor performances are the by-elections in Cameron Highlands, Semenyih and Rantau that PH lost to the Barisan Nasional.
He told Sarawak PH state lawmakers to “enjoy their stay” for now because the PH may no longer be the federal government in the next general election.
“You will be voted out in the next election,” he said in the Sarawak State Legislative Assembly.
“Now the people have realised that a lot of things brought up by PH in its election manifesto were just lies,” he said.
Karim, who is also PBB vice president, said he could remember reading PH election manifesto and promises, including telling the people that PH would return 50 per cent of the revenue collected from the state and a 20 per cent royalty on oil and gas if it captured Putrajaya.
He said the people are now fed-up with PH federal government due to its many U-turns and empty promises.
“Apart from those U-turns and empty promises, the welfare assistance to the fishermen was to be reduced from RM300, welfare assistance to farmers reduced and the state government has to take over the payment of allowance to the community leaders,” he said.
Karim believed that PH would lose if a by-election was held in Sarawak.
He said people are also fed-up with dishonest PH leaders who lied about their educational backgrounds and qualifications.
He said during the campaign they lied that they studied at prestigious universities, like Cambridge and National University of Singapore, to impress the voters.
“If we are prepared to lie about our educational qualifications, then we will just be treating lies as something normal,” he said.
Karim also hit out at federal Minister of Communications and Multimedia Gobind Singh Deo for allegedly playing politics on RTM Sarawak’s failure to air programmes and functions of the state government.
He said official functions of the state government and ministers are still not given coverage despite claims by Gobind that he had instructed RTM Sarawak to do so.
Karim reminded Gobind that Sarawakians, like other Malaysians, sing the same national anthem and that the Sarawak government is a legitimate government.
“The role of RTM is to unite the people,” he said, stating the ministry should not be running away from that responsibility.
