Kit Siang: Will Taib’s reluctance to leave cost BN Sarawak?
By Melissa Chi, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, April 14 – DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang put forward today the possibility of Barisan Nasional (BN) losing the Sarawak state election if its longest serving Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud refused to resign soon.
It was reported earlier today that that former PM Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had suggested that the Sarawak CM be reminded of previous electoral defeats suffered by BN when its leaders refused to quit.
Although he stopped short of saying whether Taib should stay or leave, he made reference to BN’s losses as a result of state leaders refusing to quit.
“There was one MB who insisted he should continue, and lost the whole state. If we learn from history, we won’t do it again,” Dr Mahathir had said at a press conference after launching an Islamic tourism conference in Kuching, Sarawak.
He did not specify the mentri besar he was referring to, though Lim (picture) assumed that he was pointing at a former Terengganu MP who helmed the state for 25 years, and had lost it to PAS.
“Mahathir was of course referring to the case of Tan Sri Wan Mokhtar Ahmad who was Mentri Besar of Terengganu for 25 years from 1974 to 1999 and was ignominiously evicted from office when Barisan Nasional suffered an electoral rout of 4 – 28 state assembly seats to PAS in the 1999 general elections,” Lim said in a statement.
The Ipoh Timor MP said that there is no doubt that getting Taib to step down as Chief Minister is the “single most potent weapon and burning issue” against the BN in the 10th Sarawak state general elections.
“… uniting Sarawakians regardless of race or religion throughout the state not because of Taib’s age, [or] the length of his tenure as Chief Minister, but because of the lack of accountability, transparency and good governance under Taib’s Chief Ministership illustrated by the mountain of allegations on abuses of power and rampant corruption under his rule which he has not been able to rebut.
“It is not that the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is not aware of Sarawak Barisan Nasional’s Achilles heel but even he is impotent as far as getting Taib to step down as Chief Minister,” Lim said.
He said that Najib’s attempts to “tie Taib down” to an early date to step down had been “fobbed off and foiled” by the Chief Minister, as Najib promised Sarawakians that Taib will step down, although there were reports saying that the Chief Minister will only resign in about two years time.
“For instance, when Najib ‘closed down’ Putrajaya for six days and led his entire Cabinet to Sarawak to campaign in the Sarawak state general elections on Sunday, his first message was to assure Sarawakians that a change in the state leadership was imminent.
“But Taib refused to ‘play ball’ and made it very clear in Najib’s presence the next day that he was not planning any ‘imminent’ stepping down as Chief Minister, as his time frame is ‘in a few years’ time’,” he said.
Taib had announced on Tuesday that he had identified his successor as Sarawak Chief Minister and that he had been grooming his successor for 20 years but did not reveal the identity of his successor.
“Yesterday, Taib vacillated talking at first about ‘two, three years’ and later ‘two years’ as the timeframe of his stepping down after Saturday’s state general elections.
“Clearly, it is still very elastic to Taib as to the timeframe of his stepping down as Sarawak Chief Minister and depending on the outcome of Saturday’s polls, it could still range from two, three to four and even five years,” Lim said.
