KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 29 — Sarawak DAP chief Chong Chieng Jen today said that they are willing to make concessions with Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) despite the latter having previously said that it did not want DAP in the new ruling coalition if formed.
Chong told Malaysiakini that DAP Sarawak is willing to work together with GPS in the upcoming state election, in the name of national interest.
“In the name of national interest, anything can,” he said.
Chong said that GPS are open to working with anyone other than Umno and PAS.
Chong says the country is at a crossroads now and GPS must choose between working with “racists” and “religious extremists” in Umno and PAS, or with Pakatan Harapan.
On February 24, Parti Rakyat Sarawak president Tan Sri James Masing said that GPS will support any new coalition under the leadership of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, but only if DAP is excluded.
He said GPS has set conditional support for the new ruling coalition to not include the “arrogant” DAP in the administration.
Masing said GPS is comfortable working with PAS, despite the Sarawak government’s past denouncements of the Islamist party leaders for their purported racial and religious remarks.
He was reported saying that GPS-ruled Sarawak can exercise its immigration autonomy to stop religious extremism within its borders.
“We can control religious [extremism] but we cannot stop administrative arrogance,” Masing was quoted saying in what appeared to be an allusion to DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.
Lim, who was appointed finance minister in the Mahathir administration, was reported saying in June 2019 that Sarawak might go bankrupt in three years.
“Isn’t that arrogant? To me, this is pure arrogance of a finance minister,” Masing was quoted saying.
Previously, Lim had said Sarawak’s reserves of RM30 billion would be exhausted in three years on the state’s annual budget of RM11 billion.
