Report: DBP board of control chairman urges Sarawak to review ‘premier’ decision, says may cause confusion with PM title

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 22 — Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka’s (DBP) board of control chairman Prof Datuk Awang Sariyan hopes Sarawak will reconsider its decision to change the title of its state government leader from “chief minister” to “premier”.

He said there were long term implications to the use of the term, one of which was creating the perception that there was a prime minister at the state level, Utusan Malaysia reported today.

“One of the implications is that the concept of federalism which is the basis of the Malaysian Federation will be affected and this needs to be examined carefully,” he told the Malay daily.

Awang said many of his friends from Sarawak had called him and expressed shock over the latest developments.

“I was surprised because DBP Sarawak was not informed and so far there is no official meaning of the term in the dictionary to refer to the prime minister,” he was quoted saying.

Awang said the word “premier” originated from France and was a modification of the Latin term “primarius”, which means first or foremost.

According to Utusan Malaysia, the word “premier” is not listed in the world’s largest Malay language dictionary containing 120,000 entries.

Awang said that if Sarawak were to have a head of government with the same term as the prime minister, Sabah would have the same right too.

“The core issue is that has the term chief minister caused a lack of implementation in the Constitution related to the 20 special provisions for Sabah and Sarawak?” he asked.

“Therefore, the term equivalent to ‘prime minister’ should be avoided because it could trigger the perception that there is a post of prime minister at the state level,” he was quoted saying.

Awang called for a fair discussion on whether there was a need to make changes to the Malaysia Agreement 1963, based on the Federal Constitution.

The Sarawak state legislative assembly approved a Bill to amend the designation of its state government leader from chief minister to premier on February 15 with 67 assemblymen voting for and six against.