(Miri, Thursday): In the previous general elections, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad would make a state-by-state political roadshow before he announces the dissolution of Parliament to set the stage for national polls.
Mahathir has now visited six states in a national roadshow, namely Kedah, Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Johore, Perak and Penang, and would visit Perlis, Sarawak and Sabah in the next fortnight, and by the end of the SUKOM in the third week of next month, he would have covered all the 13 states as well as the Federal Territory.
The situation is then ready for Mahathir dissolve Parliament and call general elections. Although it is conventional wisdom that general elections would be held in the first quarter of next year, I will not be surprised if general elections are held in the next two to three months, even with polling sometime in the middle of October.
I call on Sarawakians to play a leading role in denying the Barisan Nasional two-thirds parliamentary majority in the next general elections.
At present, the DAP has only one MP from Sarawak - Chiew Chin Sing, the DAP MP for Bintulu. However the DAP's one MP in Parliament has spoken more times in Parliament in the past 40 months than any SUPP MP - in fact, one DAP MP in Parliament can take on the various SUPP MPs together in terms of diligence and conscientiousness in speaking up to articulate the voice and aspirations of the people of Sarawak in the Malaysian Parliament.
It is clearly a waste of public funds as well as a waste of the votes of the people of Sarawak to vote so many SUPP MPs in Parliament when they are not serious or conscientious in the discharge of their parliamentary duties.
I hope in the next general elections, the people of Sarawak would stand up with the people in the rest of Malaysia to create a new political chapter in Malaysia by denying the Barisan Nasional its two-thirds majority in Parliament.
It is also my hope that in the next general elections, the people of Sarawak can elect from three to five DAP MPs to create another Sarawak and DAP history - with one MP from Miri.
(13/8/98)