KUCHING, June 14 — Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) president Tan Sri James Masing warned today that newly-formed Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) must be properly structured to ensure its relevance to the people, or risk facing BN’s GE14 fate during the 2021 state election.
“If GPS is not properly structured, then what happened to Barisan Nasional in the 14th general election could be repeated come the Sarawak state election in 2021,” the deputy chief minister said.
GPS was formed three days ago by Parti Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB), Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and Progressive Democratic Party (PDP).
It pledged to cooperate and collaborate with the PH federal government for the national interests and state’s rights and interests based on the Federal Constitution.
Masing also warned that GPS should not have any dominating partners such as Umno in BN.
“BN lost not because Malaysians did not like the BN as a coalition concept.
“But Malaysians rejected BN because Umno was dominating the coalition. It had became too dominating, arrogance and refused to listen to smaller parties in the coalition,” he said.
He said Umno’s 60 years in power had made it blind to the problems of the others and deaf to the cries of smaller groups in the coalition.
“The people in Malaysia had had enough and rejected Umno. BN, as a result, felt the backlash,” he said.
Masing said he does not believe Umno will spread its wings to Sarawak after PBB, PRS, SUPP and PDP’s exit from BN.
“And I don’t think Sarawakians would be in a hurry to allow the party to come to the state, either,” he said.
