DAP tells Najib to learn from Britain’s Cameron

Jimmy Wong says Najib can learn a lot from the Scottish Referendum in how to deal with the issue of secession.

KLUANG: DAP Sabah Chairman Jimmy Wong says Prime Minister Najib Razak could learn a lesson or two from his peer David Cameron of Britain on how to deal with the issue of Sabah and Sarawak’s desire to secede from the federation.

Wong, who is also MP for Kota Kinabalu said Najib should emulate Cameron’s “civilised and democratic way” in handling differences in the nation and “listen to the people in Sabah and Sarawak”.

He added that “using the colonial and outdated Sedition Act to charge the separatist” was the wrong way.

Saying he believed not all Sabahans and Sarawakians wanted independence, Wong explained it was more an issue of them being “unhappy over the injustice and imbalanced distribution of wealth as well as the lack of development in Sabah and Sarawak”.

Wong suggested, “Malaysia firstly must upgrade Sabah and Sarawak Assembly Hall to be Sabah and Sarawak Parliament just like the Scottish Parliament was set up in 1998.”

He also petitioned for “more powers to Sabah and Sarawak to decide on their taxation, welfare, education, health and etc,” as was promised in the 20 Points / 18 Points Agreement as well as the Malaysia Agreement.

He added, “As we Pakatan Rakyat have made promises in our manifesto that we recognise Sabah and Sarawak as equal partners within Federation of Malaysia and we promise that devolution and decentralisation of power would take place if we win Putrajaya.”

Wong said it was important for Najib and the BN federal government to “devolve power to Sabah and Sarawak and honour the federalism system.”

Wong said Malaysia could learn four lessons from the Scottish Referendum -devolving power, holding a referendum, restructuring the federation system and handling differences in a civilised way.