SARAWAK-BASED parties dumped Barisan Nasional after the May 9 general election because it was the right time to end the peninsula’s treatment of the Bornean state as a colony, Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg said today.

Abang Johari, now president of a coalition of former BN parties called Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), said this when launching Parti Sarawak Bersatu, the name for the rebranded United People’s Party, in Kuching.

He said Sarawak parties had been treated “insignificantly” by BN even though Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), which he led, was the second largest party in the coalition.

Besides PBB, the voices of other Sarawak former BN parties – Parti Rakyat Sarawak, Sarawak United People’s Party and Progressive Democratic Party – had been drowned by Umno and peninsula-based Malay political parties.

He said in BN, Sarawak parties had been told “to leave it we don’t agree” with policies that were not in the state’s interest.

The defeat of BN in the general election was just “the right time” for us to leave, Awang Johari said.

“We met over it and the decision was easy.

“We (Sarawak) are not going to be another colony (of Malaya).”

Abang Johari said the state’s growing economy had shown that Sarawak could be self-reliant.

“We can swim on our own.

“We can transform Sarawak to be a developed state,” he said referring to the billions in ringgit the state would earn when it exercised its rights to impose sales tax on crude petroleum products sold and produced in the state. – December 8, 2018.