This is the third year Malaysia Day is celebrated as a national public holiday – as it has taken 47 years before Malaysia Day on September 16 was accorded proper recognition as a national public holiday by the Barisan Nasional federal government, starting from 2010.
This was thanks to two events: Firstly, the public pledge by Pakatan Rakyat that a PR government in Putrajaya would do what the Barisan Nasional had failed to do, i.e. declare September 16 as a national public holiday.
Secondly, the “political tsunami” of the March 8, 2008 general election which caused the belated realisation by the Prime Minister and the BN leaders in Sarawak and Sabah that the BN MPs in the two states occupy a strategic “kingmaker” role determining the survival of UMNO hegemony and Barisan Nasional federal government.
The BN suffered a severe thrashing in the 2008 general election, winning 140 seats against the Pakatan Rakyat’s 82. However, 54 of these BN parliamentary seats come from Sarawak and Sabah – Sarawak 30 and Sabah 24.
Without these 54 BN MPs from Sarawak and Sabah, BN would be reduced to 86 seats out of 222 MPs in Parliament, a reversal of the political demography in Parliament and evicting B N from Putrajaya into the Opposition ranks.
Although PR and the 2008 “political tsunami’ have combined to force UMNO/Barisan Nasional to concede in according Sept. 16 as a national holiday, this is a half-hearted gesture and not really meaningful as Malaysia Day is treated as a mere Sarawak and Sabah event instead of a national celebration by UMNO/Barisan Nasional – making a full mockery of Najib’s 1Malaysia slogan and policy. Continue reading “Call on all Sarawak and Sabah MPs, whether BN or PR, to give unanimous support in Parliament to proposal for a RCI to assess whether the dreams and aspirations of Sarawakians and Sabahans in forming Malaysia had been fulfilled or betrayed in past five decades”