Only top BN leaders can allocate seats — Nansian
KUCHING: No single Barisan Nasional (BN) party can claim any of the 82 state seats until they have been allocated by top BN leaders.
Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras) deputy president Datuk Peter Nansian said all parties had the right to nominate their candidates to contest any seat but the question of who would represent BN at the end of the day would be the prerogative of BN’s top leaders.
He said any party including the Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) could therefore nominate candidates
for constituencies such as Tasik Biru, of which he is the incumbent, because in the end “it will be the boss who will make the final decision”.
“The only thing is as true loyal BN members, we must listen to our boss and not try to be more superior than the boss and tell him what to do,” he said.
He told The Borneo Post this yesterday when commenting on a statement by SPDP Jagoi chief Dominic Ritay for all parties to respect SPDP’s right to nominate a candidate for Tasik Biru.
“Let me tell them this. No single party owns any particular seat. All seats belong to BN and only the top leadership has the sole right to decide who they want to represent BN,” said Nansian.
“The same thing goes to Tasik Biru. SPDP can claim that the seat belongs to them but if the BN chief decides to nominate someone else, who is more winnable, what are they going to say? Will they still put their candidate to challenge the BN candidate?”
He said it is therefore better for all parties to stop arguing on who will be the candidate but instead just focus on serving the people as this would be the only way to help strengthen support for BN.
“Stop wasting too much time fighting for rights over seats because that will not bring BN any good. What they should do is serve the people with full sincerity because that is more important,” he said.
Nansian said as long as he was still the elected representative, he would continue to serve the people.
“As far as I am concerned, I am still part of the government and because of that I have to execute all the duties and responsibilities that have been entrusted to me by the top leadership.
“So no one should stop or prevent me from helping the people because this is what we are supposed to do as elected representatives. Of course by engaging and working together with the local grassroots and community leaders,” he said.
Nansian added that it was unwarranted for Dominic to ask him to stop using community leaders, village chiefs and village security and development committees (JKKKs) for official events.
“I don’t see anything wrong with that. These people (community leaders, village chiefs and JKKKs) are part of the government. So am I and we should be working together in our common goal to serve the people. Is that wrong?” he asked.
Nansian also said it was unfair for Dominic to claim that he (Nansian) had resorted to instructing community leaders and councillors to boycott other government functions, especially those officiated at by Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Anthony Nogeh Gumbek, who is SPDP secretary-general.
“I don’t pay people to come to my functions and neither do I give money to anyone to stay away from activities organised by SPDP. I don’t do these types of things.”-Borneo Post
