ELECTION TALK: Putrajaya and Sarawak have come to an understanding never seen before, Prime Minister Najib Razak and Chief Minister Adenan Satem are singing praises of each other.
Najib wants Sarawakians to give their undivided support to Adenan in the coming 11th Sarawak election.
In particular, he wants the Chinese to be united and seek to be strongly represented in the state government.
“If the bumiputera communities can give their full support to Adenan and his team, the Chinese should do likewise for a very strong state government,” he was quoted as saying.
Najib, too, wants Adenan’s next government to be a strong government, saying the chief minister would be in a better position to talk and negotiate with the federal government on things like more development allocations to the state and its greater empowerment which will benefit the people.
Adenan, on the other hand, is urging Sarawakians to give Najib time to fulfil his promise to the state.
He said the prime minister has committed Putrajaya to helping Sarawak accomplish its development plans.
Describing Najib as “the best prime minister” with “a big place in his heart for the people of Sarawak”, Adenan said, “He is the one who is always with us. With a PM who sympathises with us, we will be able to achieve our goals.”
So, on the one hand, to PM, Adenan is “the right man” capable of ensuring continuity in the good state-federal relations and uninterrupted development in the state.
On the other hand, Adenan describes Najib as a “caring leader” whom Sarawakians can count on for “positive responses to our demands”.
That’s the kind of mutual respect Adenan and Najib have for each other. And that too is the kind of relationship Sarawak has with Putrajaya, one that may be sufficiently summed up in this line Adenan said during a live television interview on RTM’S TV1 night of Feb 27: “I am anti-inequality, not anti-leaders of the federal government and people of the peninsula.”
It’s a relationship that has been fully understood and accepted by Najib’s government.
Sarawak and Putrajaya has reached a new era of understanding and cooperation that has taken more than 50 years to realise, and Adenan will be going to the state polls riding on the waves of a much strengthened state-federal relationship and understanding.
In other words, Sarawak DAP can wake up from its dream of wanting to see Adenan severing ties with the Umno-led BN because that will not happen. Not now, not for as long as Najib is still PM.
The opposition can say what they want, like a vote for Adenan is a vote for Najib and Umno, that “administrative autonomy” is not as good as “true autonomy”, that Adenan will not be able to achieve what he has set out to achieve in the next five years, but none of these will distract Sarawakians enamoured by Adenan’s leadership.
The fact remains that Adenan stands and fights for Sarawakians with the full knowledge and understanding of the Prime Minister, which makes his struggle more realistic and with a better chance of being achievable compared to the confrontational politics of the opposition whose main aim is to overthrow the government and take control of Putrajaya.
Look at it this way, Adenan wants to be strong so that whoever controls Putrajaya will want to be his friend like Najib does, or whoever is prime minister will see the benefit of Adenan’s friendship.
The way things are, Najib looks good for the full term of his government and premiership, Adenan will make the most of the prime minister’s remaining years in office to pursue his vision for Sarawak.-The Ant Daily
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