COMMENT: The state Barisan National boys did not waste any time in running down Sarawak PKR’s 20-point ‘Roadmap for a New Sarawak’ when its existence was made public by Baru Bian.
Baru Bian, the state PKR chief, did not disclose much about the roadmap except to say that it would cover various areas such as statehood, governance, religious freedom, land, economic justice, civil infrastructure, healthcare, electricity and water supplies, education, housing, transportation, welfare, women’s right, youth privileges, tourism, culture, environment, agriculture, labour and community leaders.
He said if PKR gets to govern Sarawak, the roadmap, to be finalised and approved by the state PKR leadership by July 21 and then launched on July 22, will give Sarawakians a range of new and practical offers that the Sarawak BN government had failed to deliver in the last 53 years.
“We don’t call it a manifesto. We call it a 20-point ‘Roadmap for a New Sarawak’, which is a very good title. The proposed roadmap is very detailed and we believe it will address all the hottest issues in Sarawak.
“I believe this will be a very realistic approach by PKR for the people of Sarawak to consider as we face the next state election.”
Baru and company are still working on the roadmap. They sure have the details but the PKR people are giving themselves until July 21 to come up with the final product. Until then, there is still much to be done in terms of fine-tuning.
And until the final product is made public, it is most unfair to prejudge the roadmap and sarcastically write it off the way the BN people did.
Paul Igai, a political secretary to the chief minister, said there is no need for such a road map.
“Things are easier said than done,” said Kakus assemblyman John Sikie Tayai when asked what he thought of the roadmap.
Sikie, a former primary school teacher, and a legislator for close to a quarter century now, could not conceal his inability and unwillingness to get out of his comfort zone. His way, it would seem, is the less said, the better.
Of politicians like Sikie, as rightly pointed out by state PKR information chief Vernon Aji Kedit, it will be “asking too much to expect dinosaurs to come up with a 21st century world class vision for our beloved state”.
Not a while back, I wrote to say that the 11th state election will be Adenan’s best chance to not only disband his inherited BN Plus government but also get rid of dead wood and “driftwood” in all the four BN component parties.
And only recently I said Adenan’s invitation to Baru to join BN is no trivial matter. He sees in Baru what he cannot find among the BN politicians, which is that the Ba Kelalan assemblyman is a highly principled person, focused, knowledgeable and resourceful.
Baru and those guys in Sarawak PKR are not the type shy of challenges.
For them, if there is a will, there is a way. They aren’t the kind who will raise the white flag and say, “Things are easier said than done, so let’s not open our mouths.”
They are the progressives.
The non-progressives are those who continue to hold the people at ransom, telling folk they must vote for them if they want bridges, roads and schools to be built, and water and electricity connected.
The non-progressives play on the hardship of the poverty-stricken, promising them buffaloes if they get a diploma or a degree and lulling rural farmers into a pipedream of conquering the international market with their backyard gardening.
How many grand ideas had come out of the heads of these non-progressives only to see a nil result?
A multi-million deep-freezer plant in Tarat that got frozen in time.
Kepayang, that highly poisonous fruit that they wanted to pass off as an exotic Sarawak delicacy to God-knows-what-international-market.
Paul Igai, a political secretary to the chief minister, said there is no need for such a road map because Sarawak is in the good hands of a “progressive” chief minister.
“Why? Don’t they want Sarawak as it is? No need for a New Sarawak.
“Just let us together make it a much better place and more progressive Sarawak. We have a very progressive CM so let’s give him the support to lead the way. He already started the New Beginning,” Igai was quoted as saying.
It is like as if, to Igai, not only is the previous chief minister a less progressive leader but that when you have a progressive leader, the kind of roadmap the PKR people have doesn’t even deserve a peek.
That to me is arrogance.
I don’t know if Adenan is progressive or not, what is clear is that in just one year he has done things that his predecessor had failed to do in more than 30 years.
He is also quick to appreciate, and it was out of appreciation that he invited Baru to join BN.
The 20-point ‘Roadmap for a New Sarawak’ could very well have come from the BN if Baru had accepted Adenan’s olive branch.
If that had happened, you could be sure the likes of Igai and Sikie would be among the first to scream, “Hear ye, hear ye, the New Sarawak has arrived.”
Baru and company, Sarawakians can’t wait to see your roadmap.-The Ant Daily [Jimmy Adit]
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