Tiang answers Wong Soon Koh’s statement

suppadmin | November 16, 2020

On behalf of my Party President, Dato’ Sri Dr. Sim Kui Hian, I wish to accept Wong Soon Koh’s challenge to have a public debate on the latest constitutional amendment on a person’s eligibility to become a State Legislative Assembly member in Sarawak, said Political Secretary to CM, Michael Tiang.

“I’m more than happy to grab this opportunity to have a debate with Wong Soon Koh, a senior State assemblyman for Bawang Assan since 1991 since he reckoned that such a public debate is necessary to allow the public to see on whether the new amendment has in any way become the risk of erosion of the very basic rights of Sarawakians”, he said.

Tiang added that while mocking Dr. Sim for failing to understand the English words used in the Bill, Soon Koh and his DAP colleagues are in fact making a blunder by using basic English to interpret the constitutional amendment to Article 16 of the State Constitution, and such erroneous interpretation is an irresponsible and misleading act altogether!

“Our new constitutional amendment was in fact drafted according to the principle of Jus Sanguinis, an international legal principal of nationality law. The latin term jus sanguinis means “right of blood.” As one might guess, this is the right of citizenship to a country or a territory your parents or one of your parent is a citizen of. Regardless of where you were born, you have the right to such citizenship in your parent’s’ country or territory. Therefore our constitutional amendment correctly requires any eligible person to become a member of our State Legislative Assembly, he must have a Sarawakian parentage. In other words, he must have at least either one of his parents who is a born Sarawakian and he himself is normally resident in Sarawak, even though he might not be born in Sarawak. It’s a clear intention of the amendment that: A non-Sarawakian is never a Sarawakian even if he was born in Sarawak. But a Sarawakian though not born in Sarawak, his parent’s Sarawkian status would allow him to be eligible to contest in a Sarawak state election and to become a member in the august House, ” he stated.

Therefore, Tiang pointed out, the illustration of Leila and Putri used by Wong Soon Koh is also conflicting with his own view that any Malaysian not born in Sarawak can be a candidate in Sarawak state election. According to his illustration, Leila is a daughter to both West Malaysian parents. Even though Leila was born in Sarawak, due to her West Malaysian parentage, she is a non-Sarawakian. After that she married to a West Malaysian husband and gave birth to a daughter Putri in West Malaysia. Although Putri is now working in Sarawak as a policewoman with permanent resident status in Sarawak, Putri is still not eligible to run as a candidate in a Sarawak state election as neither of her parents is a Sarawakian.

In fact, the illustration given by Soon Koh can only further elaborate the purpose of the new amendment that is to prevent non-Sarawakians from becoming members in our State Legislative Assembly and hence further protect Sarawakians of our basic rights in the DUN. The objective of this constitutional amendment is also very much in line with GPS’ political agenda that is to always safeguard Sarawak rights and privileges by putting Sarawak First in its governance of the State, he said.