Has the time come for Sabah or Sarawak to produce a Prime Minister?

The choice of Tenom and Keningau today to launch in Sabah the “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion?” campaign is most significant.

The campaign is part of a movement to instill in Malaysians a consciousness of their democratic rights and national inheritance so that they can stand up as one people to defend not only their rights but those of future generations.

In Myanmar, voters lined up as early as 3 am on Sunday (November 8) to vote, an indication of how eager the people of Myanmar are to seize a chance for freedom after five decades of military rule.

The latest results showed that Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) has won a landslide victory, winning 78 out of 88 seats for the lower house of parliament for which the election commission has final results. The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) party has won five.

The road for the return of democracy in Myanmar will a long and uneasy one, as much trouble, trial and tribulation lie ahead.

The democratic and electoral process and experience in Myanmar, despite their numerous weaknesses and defects, hold an important lesson for us in Sabah and Malaysia – that it is finally the people themselves who must stand up to claim and protect their democratic rights and national heritage to defeat the designs of those who want to deny them their basic human rights and legacy.

Keningau has a unique place in the Sabah and Malaysian struggle to restore our democratic rights and national inheritance, immortalised in the Batu Sumpah in Keningau, which spelt out the rights and legacy which should be protected at all times in Sabah and Malaysia.

It is no exaggeration to say that Keningau represents the heartland and soul of Sabah and the Batu Sumpah of Keningau the “Northern Star” for Sabahans to preserve what is special and unique for Sabah in the Malaysian Federation.

The launch of the campaign in Tenom this morning was also highly significant for 30 years ago, the people of Tenom created history and caused a political sensation in Sabah and Malaysia when they voted in an unknown information officer, Kadoh Agundong, into the Sabah State Assembly, a “giant-killer” who defeated the then Sabah Chief Minister, Datuk Haris Salleh in the 1985 Sabah state general election.

I had this morning posed the question in Tenom whether the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak would be toppled on Monday, 16th November 2015 when the 2016 Budget is put to a vote in Parliament.

November 16 would have been the last day of Najib as the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia if all the 47 Barisan Nasional Members of Parliament (22 from Sabah and 25 from Sarawak) join the 71 Pakatan Harapan Members of Parliament from DAP, PKR and AMANAH (minus my one vote, as I have been suspended from Parliament for six months) to reject Najib’s 2016 Budget.

From the present political scenario, this will not happen – but this possibility should drive home to Sabahans and Sarawakians their pivotal role in Malaysian politics, that they are the political “king-makers” who can decide who should be the Prime Minister of Malaysia and who should form the Federal Government in Putrajaya.

In fact, 52 years after the formation of Malaysia, it is also time to ask a question which had never been posed publicly in Malaysia – whether the time has come for Sabah or Sarawak to produce a Prime Minister for Malaysia.

Who in Sabah or Sarawak would qualify to be Prime Minister of Malaysia – or are there no such candidate at all?

The launch of the “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion?” campaign in Sabah in six areas in Sabah namely Tenom, Keninglau, Kudat, Kota Kinabalu, Tuaran and Sandakan from Nov. 10 – 12 is an important part of the national campaign to raise political consciousness of Malaysians – for instance, for Malaysians to realise that I am not the only victim of Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals as all the 30 million Malaysians and 3.3 million Sabahans are also victims of these twin mega scandals!

Lim Kit Siang DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Gelang Patah