PKR's promise of autonomy to East Malaysia

On Sunday Dr Wan Azizah, de jure (wakakaka) president of PKR upped the ante in/for her husband's attempt to secure political power in the next election.

While dear Wan Azizah is the de jure president of her political party, her hubby, Anwar Ibrahim, is the de facto leader.

Oh, BTW, in the above two sentences, kaytee believes he may be providing better English lesson than those English teachers contracted by the Education Minister at the considerable cost of RM270 million.

By now a student would have learned the difference between de jure and de facto, wakakaka, and realized the influence of Latin in the development of English and the continuing indispensability of the so-called 'dead' language.

Also, the student would have learned:

• upped the ante
• to secure political power

... wakakaka, and of course the colloquial 'hubby'.

Now, why have I brought in a term used in the card game of poker, to wit, 'up (or) raise the ante'?

Incidentally, 'up the ante' means 'to increase the risks in a situation in order to achieve a better result', where ‘ante’ of course is an amount of money that must be paid into the poker pool before the game can continue.

Previously, PKR or rather Anwar Ibrahim had promised that should he become PM, Sarawak and Sabah would receive 20% royalties from the revenue obtained from oil-gas fields in their respective state, instead of the current 5% that each state (including Terengganu and Kelantan in Peninsula) is receiving. That in itself was already an upping of the ante, namely, from 5% to 20%. Now, PKR is proposing more.

Incidentally, I read in a news media's interactive section some comments abruptly dismissing the proposed 20% royalties and berating the federal government and PKR for even taking any of the Sarawak and Sabah's oil-gas revenue, obviously comments made by aggrieved Sarawakians and/or Sabahans. This is an interesting viewpoint which I will touch upon soon - just keep it in mind.

As the two East Malaysian states have been perceived as the key to control of federal power, and thus UMNO's soft underbelly (now, now, no salacious comment please), obviously Anwar sees his strategy for occupying Putrajaya as winning the majority of seats in Sarawak and Sabah, which Najib termed as his 'fixed deposit'.

[in happier days]

"Datuk, I said no to George Chan's request for an increase in oil royalties."

"Well done, Datuk Seri, I made the right choice in having you as finance minister."

wakakaka

As I have written in Will Sabah secede? there has been a worrying awakening of angry nationalism in Sabah and Sarawak that bodes no good for the continuing cohesion of Malaysia. Many are the people of the two Eastern States who are pissed off with Putrajaya for their treatment, in that a succession of patronizing and condescending PMs viewed both States as only equal or even lesser to one of the 11 states in Peninsula, when the constitutional fact of Malaysia has been one of a merger of Malaya (or the Peninsula), Sabah and Sarawak (and previously Singapore), and not of 14 states.

Thus, rightfully Sabah or Sarawak each should have the status and associated allocations & developments on at least a pro rata quantum to that for the entire Peninsula (peninsula contains almost 4/5 of the total population), but alas, these were not provided.

Mind, Putrajaya has been concentrating most developments in its favourite Klang Valley, with some feeble efforts in recent times in the Johor Iskandar zone, so other Peninsula states especially those governed by Pakatan (Kelantan and Penang) have also been as equally or almost equally marginalized as the two Eastern states.

That an expelled Singapore (from Malaysia) is now doing great guns on its own has added to the 2 Eastern States’ chagrin in their perspective that “there, but for the curse of Syaitan, could have been us”, where 'Syaitan' of course is Putrajaya, wakakaka.

Now, now, just who did you think was Syaitan? Wakakaka again.

The mood of the majority in Sabah and Sarawak is that of being cheated and marginalized by the West, and not just by the federal government but also in general by those bloody West Malaysians, and probably, if my reading has been correct, by people like those in PKR, wakakaka, because of perception of PKR headquarters’ obsessively centralized control of its own party branches in Sabah and Sarawak.

And recently, didn't we witness how PKR in Sabah became unstuck? Admittedly, some problems could be attributed to PKR's 'taxi sapu' policy which carries very high risk, like in a poker game, wakakaka.

Now, remember what I said earlier, how I found interesting the viewpoints I read in a news media's interactive section, where some (Sarawakians/Sabahans') comments angrily dismissed the proposed 20% royalties and berated the federal government as well as PKR for even taking (or talking about taking) any of the Sarawak and Sabah's oil-gas revenue?

The Sarawakians and Sabahans are very desirous of at least autonomy if not secession, so as to take complete charge of their own destiny and most certainly the state's wealth, not just 20% but the full caboodle, yes 100%, as they not only no longer trust nor want federal politicians to look after those for them, but they reckon they don't want to share a single drop of oil or whiff of gas with 'orang asing', namely those damn West Malaysians.

I wonder whether Anwar is aware of this, when Wan Azizah announced PKR's policy of autonomy for the two Eastern states in his bid to win the East Malaysians over to his side.

While of course it's important that Pakatan and not just PKR (who's fond of going it alone when it comes to East Malaysia) takes note of the Sabahans' and Sarawakians' burning nationalistic aspirations, and should endeavour their utmost to accommodate their due rights in terms of increased development and fairer distribution of national wealth, rather than proposed further autonomy because greater autonomy will invariably lead to secession.

Yes, we need to be aware that two autonomous states separated from Peninsula by the vast water body of the South China Sea will be as good as two de facto secession, wakakaka that word 'de facto' again, and this time I have no doubt you would have realized the enormity of the consequences of de facto secession.

Just ingat baik2, how our RM2 billion ESSCOM had not been able to even prevent a motley bunch of Filipino bandits from coming into our country to kill one Taiwanese tourist and kidnap his wife - malu lah. So ..... macam mana dengan keadaan a full blown secession, let alone two?

Previously I had warned of this possibility (secession), though I doubt this consideration would have ever penetrate the skulls of the leaders of one component party in Pakatan in their blinded obsession to win power to rule, whatever it takes. Just remember that when one 'ups the ante' (by promising autonomy - to what degree?) one also increases the risks (of secession).

Who do we blame for us arriving at this sad state of brewing fermenting corrosive trouble? Whoever, my uncles and their military/police mates will be most upset, having served there in the military, with blood, toil, tears & sweat during Konfrontasi and the communist insurgency.

The battle is all over except the 'shouting' when one knows what is wanted and has made up his mind to get it, whatever the price may be – Napolean Hill.

Okay then, let's start off with the simple issue of autonomy, if not secession. Sarawak and Sabah are in fact already enjoying some form of autonomy, specifically in immigration control, which has been why Brother Haris Ibrahim took the long scenic route from KL to KL, wakakaka.

In fact, precisely because of this rather out-of-date and in my opinion, inappropriate immigration control after more than 50 years of Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah are denying themselves of greater development by blocking out other Malaysians.

Yes, there is no doubt they are worried about the more commercially-aggressive Peninsula-reans, but there's always a yang to a yin in that greater influx of West Malaysians into Sarawak and Sabah will also bring along greater development and prosperity to the two states. I have personally witnessed this in Labuan, which because of its federal territory status, allows Peninsula-reans to migrate there, taking along with them their broader scope and more vibrant characteristics of commercial activities.

In the case of Sarawak, by insulating themselves, the Sarawakians have instead allowed a neo White Rajah, okay then, a neo White (haired) Rajah to rule over them to their eventual personal and state economic detriment.

One could argue Peninsula-reans are far more terrible than peh-mor, but as I have said, there's always a yang to every yin, thus even with the West's greater(?) propensity to be corrupt, the opposition to such corruption is likely to be far louder and of a nationwide stature. Recall how shit-scared peh-mor had been of Brother Haris. Thus the yang-yin outcome will sort of balance out everything to the better economic development of Sarawak and Sabah.

A similar warlord-ish situation existed in Sabah during Tun Mustapha's time.

So to Sarawakian and Sabahan Malaysians, don't lock yourself in but then, alas, your local politicians will defend that immigration restriction as it will ensure they have less probing of and interference to their public-governance conduct and activities.

Coming back to Wan Azizah and her PKR policy announcement, what we lack are the details. What sort of autonomy has she promised Sarawak and Sabah? Will it be just the status quo, the current immigration control the two states are already enjoying, wakakaka, and I wouldn't be surprised by that.

Or is she (or rather Anwar Ibrahim) promising more? If so, we need details because unless we know of them and study/analyse their consequences for Malaysia, we will not and should never blindly support such 'upping of the ante'.

To end my English lesson, an English idiom for you, 'never buy a pig in a poke' wakakaka, and may I just say that the English idiom is metaphorical and has nothing to do with bah-kut-teh, wakakaka, and also my post is not directed specifically at Muslims.

no, use a dog as in 'don't bark up the wrong tree' or 'call off the dogs'

wakakaka