By Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani and Debra Chong
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 2 — Irritated by the ruling coalition’s tendency to sweep Sabah to the side except during election season, the Umno MP for Kalabakan, Datuk Abdul Ghapur Salleh, broke ranks and delivered a stinging rebuke to his partymen that left the MPs on both sides slackjawed in its wake.
“We’re talking about 1 Malaysia, but we don’t even have one price,” he cried, pointing out that Sabahans have to pay more for most goods, including newspapers, compared to their peninsular counterparts.
“We want one system,” Abdul Ghapur stressed.
He went on at length into the many problems that face his home state, and vented over what he sees as biased treatment from the federal government in marginalising the Borneo side of the country.
He was especially upset with the Chinese-dominated parties in Barisan Nasional (BN) and questioned the fairness of Gerakan politicians getting minister positions despite their poor performance in the last general elections, which concluded with them holding only two seats in Parliament.
“Sabah Chinese are asking: Why is the BN government blind?” Abdul Ghapur said in the Dewan Rakyat today, cutting into Pakatan Rakyat (PR) rival, Azmin Ali’s speech while debating next year’s Budget.
He noted that the Chinese in peninsular Malaysia had already written off Gerakan as a relevant political party.
While Abdul Ghapur still swore loyalty to BN, he warned that the federal alliance will lose the vote in the next general election if it does not pull its act together.
He went a step further later when the Dewan Rakyat Speaker ordered him to stop hogging the floor and give way to other MPs to debate the Budget.
Speaking to reporters outside, he continued to vent.
“In Barisan Nasional, we don’t want component parties to stab in the back because what we see is in the website of MCA and Gerakan say that they want to stay or leave BN,” Abdul Ghapur said, accusing the Chinese party leaders of not being “sincere”.
“So this is not sincere, the leaders of the party must be sincere.”
“We have been helping and we work together. Even some of the area that we give to our component parties are majority Malay voters but we don’t mind because we believe in BN sharing of power,” he added.
He was especially chagrinned at the Gerakan president, Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon, who botched up pronouncing his constituency in the House.
“The minister in chargeof KPI don’t even mentioned my parliamentary area correctly. Instead of ‘Kalabakan’, he says ‘kebelakangan’ (backwards),” he said.
“I mean you are the minister man, before you go to the Dewan, you must read properly. That shows that he is inefficient. That is a small problem, what more a big problem,” he added.
He called on Gerakan, MIC and MCA to clean up the messes in their own house and to make strengthen themselves to ensure a win for BN in the next election.
“The moment you quit, you think the people will support you?” he quizzed, rhetorically.
“People will think that when you are inside, you never talk, but when you are outside you want to have a new brand,” he added.
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