PARTI Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) president James Masing said the state ruling coalition Gabungan Parti Sarawak did not back Anwar Ibrahim to succeed Dr Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister because of his links with DAP.

“He was and still is supported by DAP. DAP is seen as an untrustworthy partner in the political coalition for Sarawak,” he told party members at their 16th anniversary gathering in Kuching last night.

Explaining February’s political turmoil triggered by the race to be prime minister, the deputy chief minister used Lim Guan Eng’s claim that a GPS administered Sarawak will go bankrupt in three years as an example of DAP’s arrogance and disrespect towards GPS.

Lim, then the finance minister in the Pakatan Harapan federal government, had said Sarawak’s annual budget of RM10 billion would exhaust the state’s RM31 billion reserve within three years.

“Because of Lim’s attitude and his complete lack of respect for leaders in GPS’s financial ability, we decided there and then to declare our support to any party in Malaysia to form the government, except DAP.

“GPS cannot accept DAP’s political arrogance and its dismissive attitude to the people of Sarawak,” said Masing in explaining why GPS refused to endorse the PKR president for prime minister.

“A tussle for Dr Mahathir’s replacement, between Anwar Ibrahim and Muhjiddin Yassin, was on the table.

“GPS’ support was needed by both contenders. We chose to support Muhyiddin as the eighth prime minister of Malaysia.”

Masing said GPS choice was based on two “very important principles”.

The first, he said, was that GPS wanted a government to be formed as soon as possible.

“Muhyiddin, in GPS’ opinion then, had the ability to command the majority of the MPs in the Dewan Rakyat, thus was in a better position to form the government. 

“Luckily, we did what we did, because immediately after Muhyiddin was sworn in as the prime minister, Covid-19 attacked us.

“The second principle was, and still is, is that Anwar Ibrahim was supported by DAP.” – October 22, 2020.