KOTA KINABALU: Former prime minister Mahathir Mohammad has been asked to work his magic to end Umno’s hegemony over the other races and over Sabah and Sarawak.
“He should take the opportunity to redeem some of his past mistakes instead of making insincere statements to hoodwink the people to continue the Umno stranglehold on the country,” said STAR Sabah chief Jeffrey Kitingan.
Commenting on the ex-premier’s statement to BN on adjustments in power-sharing, he claimed that in private, the other BN leaders would acknowledge that there is no real power-sharing in BN nowadays and everything is decided by Umno and imposed on the other BN components.
This can be clearly seen, he said, each time Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak came out of Umno Supreme Council meetings and announced major government policies without referring to the other BN parties.
“It is a stark reality that the other BN components are powerless and have no say whatsoever.
“They are there only for window dressing to fill up positions and to give a picture of credibility for the Umno regime,” he said.
The Bingkor Assemblyman went on to note that if the situation was bad and reaching breaking-point for the BN components and other races in the peninsula, it was worse in the case of the Borneo states, particularly Sabah.
“Whatever the pro-Umno, pro-federal government and other detractors may say, the reality is that Sabah is treated as a colony by Umno/Malaya masquerading as the federal government of Malaysia and aided by Sabah Umno/BN leaders,” he said.
He reminded that the original intention of forming the federation of Malaysia was to be a political association between Malaya, Singapore and the Borneo territories of North Borneo (now Sabah), Sarawak and Brunei.
“After 50 years, it is no longer a political association, more a racial, religious hegemony by Umno/Malaya. Fortunately for Brunei, they pulled out at the last minute,” he said.
Sabah and Sarawak were never meant to be the 12th and 13th states in Malaysia, equal in status to the likes of Perlis, Malacca or Selangor and 50 years on, Malaysia today is not the federation that was outlined.
“Although Malaysians share its uniqueness in diversity in race, religion and culture, the political reality is essentially Umno/Malay hegemony in the Peninsula and Umno/Malaya hegemony over Sabah and Sarawak.
“There is no real power-sharing, just domination, domination and more domination by Umno.
The domination has gone to the extent of twisting the facts of history and the formation of Malaysia, even the age and independence of Malaysia.
“Another form of domination is the use of the government agencies and security apparatus for their political purposes inching closer and closer to making Malaysia a police state,” he lamented.
Kitingan claimed that much of this domination happened during the time of Mahathir and the Tun Abdul Razak, the father of the present Prime Minister Najib and that it had gotten worse during the latter’s tenure.
“This was despite his “1Malaysia” slogan which has now been reduced to nothing but a hollow-and-meaningless slogan which has been rendered “1-Melayu” as evidenced at the recent Umno general assembly,” he said.
He thus reiterated that it is only appropriate for Mahathir to initiate the ending of this Umno/Malaya hegemony and for the present Prime Minister to implement it.
“Only then will true peace and harmony prevail in the Peninsula and equal partnership prevails between Malaya and the Borneo States of Sabah and Sarawak,” he stressed.
He further noted that Sabahans and Sarawakians share little in common with their cousins in the peninsula other than being Malaysians due to the merger to form Malaysia in 1963.
“If the hegemony cannot be ended, it may be better for the Malayan/Malaysian government to consider Sabah and Sarawak’s departure as what has been expounded time and again and openly by narrow-minded Umno and other Malay leaders,” he concluded.
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