THIS Malaysia Day sees a new government in power but Sarawak is greeting the day in muted fashion, in marked contrast to the euphoric manner in which it welcomed the regime change facilitated by the May 9 general election, as its patience begins to wear thin in the wait for Pakatan Harapan to make good on its promises to restore its rights and privileges.

Activists have grown tired of hearing about the “constraints” the federal government says it is under, such as the mountain of national debt left by the previous government, which prevent it from fulfilling its election promises to increase Sarawak’s oil and gas royalties.

“My aspirations and hopes for this new Malaysia under Pakatan Harapan…(are) not many,” said Sarawak autonomy activist Lina Soo, who is the Sarawak Reform Party (STAR) president.

“They are singing the same old tune of blaming Najib Razak and 1MDB (for the country’s precarious financial position).

“Nothing has changed really in terms of the government’s mindset, in respect of the political will needed to (enforce the terms of) the Malaysia Agreement 1963,” she said.

The agreement, or MA63, was the document which sealed the formation of Malaysia by Sarawak, Sabah, Malaya and Singapore in 1963. Singapore left the federation two years later.

Sarawak and Sabah have long complained that many of their rights in the agreement have not been honoured. 

Chief among their demands is a 20% oil royalty payment from the federal government but Economic Affairs Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali’s recent statements, which appear to reflect Putrajaya’s lack of will to make that happen, have stirred resentment.

Azmin had said that national oil company Petronas would go bankrupt if the royalty were to be calculated based on gross production, as demanded by both states, instead of based on the nett profit.

Soo said PH could not be much different from the previous Barisan Nasional government because its key leaders, particularly Dr Mahathir Mohamad and prime minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim, were former Umno leaders.

“It is just changing the teapot without changing the tea.”

Sarawak for Sarawakians (S4S) vice president Tan Kok Chiang said Sarawakians were beginning to lose interest in the doings of the federal government.

PH’s unfulfilled election promises made it hard to believe in a ‘new Malaysia’ for Sarawak, he said.

S4S intends to commemorate Malaysia Day today with a flash mob at Kuching’s historical Padang Merdeka to demand that Sarawak’s rights be restored in accordance with the MA63. The field in the city centre was where the British colonial government handed the ruling of the state over to Sarawak on July 22, 1963.

S4S wishes to remind PH of its other promises, such as to:
* Distribute 10% of oil royalty money to Sarawakians as “petroleum cash dividend”.
* Restore the status of Sarawak as one of the three territories of Malaysia.
* Set up a royal commission to review federal legislation that has eroded the state’s rights.
* Return 50% of all taxes collected in Sarawak.
* Devolve full autonomy in education to the Sarawak state government so that it may build schools. revive the English school, set its own education policies and employ its own teachers.
* Devolve full autonomy in healthcare to the state so that it may select its own workers in the sector procure the supplies it needs, and build its own hospitals.

Activist Peter John Jaban said it was also important that PH did not hold Sarawakians to “ransom” especially with the state election due in 2021.

Playing the state rights card by promising to pressure the then-Barisan Nasional federal government had helped the state BN to win Sarawak in the 2016 election.

“Sarawakians’ demands should not be used as a bargaining chips against the promise of a win in the coming state election,” Jaban said.

“These are their rights of the citizens of the country, regardless of which region or which race they come from.

The state government is not making a big do about Malaysia Day today either. A state banquet will be held at the legislative assembly banquet hall but there are no plans for a parade. Such fanfare was held on July 22 to commemorate Sarawak Day instead. –  September 16, 2018.