Choice in elections must relate to progress, prosperity of Sarawak

I was still quite young when the State had the three-tier system for the people to elect their representatives through local council elections. In the system, the people elected the councilors, who had the primary responsibility to elect their representatives to the divisional advisory councils, each with the responsibility to elect Members of Dewan Undangan Negeri and Parliament to represent the districts in the division.

The same procedure, then it was called a plebiscite being conducted by Inter-governmental committee(IGC)  on behalf of the United Nations,  was used to gauge the wishes of the people whether to accept or reject the  formation of Malaysia in 1963.  It was the view of the IGC that a good majority of the people wanted Sarawak to be part of the new nation Malaysia.

The State had the first directed elections in 1969.  However, the elections had to be suspended until the following year due to the May 13 racial disturbances, blamed mainly to campaigns that incited racial and religious feelings by Opposition, in the run up to the elections. The first direct election was staggered for three weeks due to transportation and logistics problems.  The subsequent elections in 1974 and 1979 were also staggered up to one week.  The State Elections Commission, with greater mobility since 1983, managed to shorten the period to three days and by the middle of 1990s, the elections could be held simultaneously in one day. Sarawak will be having the Elections, which must be held before July 2011, to elect 73 members of the State Legislative Assembly.

Chief Minister, Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is also the Chairman of the State Barisan Nasional and President of Parti Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB) that serves as the backbone of the State national front, has already given the reminder that the forthcoming state elections should not be considered as a festival or the time for politicians to speak whatever comes to their mouths without thinking of the consequences or impact on the community. Instead, the people should regard elections as opportunities for them to elect leaders, who have the capability and foresight, to push for the future progress and advancement of the State towards the year 2020 and beyond. In other words, the choice of the people must relate to the future development, progress and prosperity of the State.  The choices are diagonally opposed to each other.  If the people elect right leaders, the state should be able to continue with the uninterrupted development and progress and if they choose the wrong people, they will interrupt the progress to a standstill.

Strong discipline 

Elections must remain as means for ordinary people, who are dreaming for a better future for themselves and their children, to vote for leaders, who have the capability and sincerity to develop the State and country in order to realize their dreams. The State still needs political stability, unity and solidarity of the people, who must have strong discipline in pursuit of progress and advancement. Hence, it is incumbent upon the people to vote for leaders who have the capability and ability to come up with a team that can further develop the economy of the state and country. They must reject pseudo champions who play politics all the time. Basically, the people must remain united and vote for peace and stability if they love the state to remain prosperous and progressive towards the year 2020 and beyond.      

The State and country have come to the stage of development where the functions of development have to be performed more and more by the private sector as the instrument to achieve greater progress and prosperity towards the year 2020 and beyond. The private sector, with sufficient freedom to initiative, command and marshal all the clever people, should be able to achieve the goals of whatever jobs that they are entrusted to do in the development of the country. Hence the people must appreciate that they have to depend less and less on the government for the development of their areas. In other words, the role of the government is getting smaller and smaller in development as it moves to a much higher level of the era of massive industrialization to transform the economy from the present middle income to high income economy towards the year 2020. 

However, the government must remain as the regulator of the society with the primary task to maintain peace and harmony and safeguard the unity of the people. Besides, the government must coordinate and manage the development of the economy in a broader sense to ensure   that it will be fair and just to the people and between regions in the State and country.

Understandably, the government cannot do everything for the people anymore as the State moves to a more sophisticated and challenging level of development, which is expected to be magnanimous and multi-faceted in nature that requires more professional, sub-professional and technically trained workers. The government, on the other hand, cannot be made to become too big to perform the bigger functions of development.  For example, if the government becomes too big and the development machinery centralized like in Russia, East Germany and other Eastern bloc countries at one time, it would be difficult to serve the people and the country efficiently.

Obviously, the people must appreciate that the development of the country depends more and more on their own initiatives and efforts.  They can no longer think in terms of only government as carrying out the responsibility to develop this country. Therefore to over politicize the roles of the government in development is out of date politics; those involved in such kind of politics, even with the support of the people, will not be able to move the state and the country forward   into a more successful future.

Role of every citizen

Therefore, the people must learn to focus their efforts on what they can do and not what the government can do in development.  The captains of industry, chambers of commerce, managers of firms and companies, supervisors in factories, and technically trained workers can be expected to play bigger roles in the economic development of the State and country towards the year 2020 and beyond. In other words, the economic development of the country is the role of every citizen in the country. They must learn to criticize themselves if they do not play their own roles in the process; they must not only to see moulds in other people’s eyes but also big scars in their own noses. In this regards, the whole machinery of development has to be transformed in the task to expand the economy to move forward.

As the structure of the economy is market oriented, it is dependent on private efforts not only of Malaysians but also foreigners to invest their money in our development. The State and the country have an open economy that welcome investments from all over the world. Sarawak, for example, has to bring in world class entrepreneurs and other world standard investors to set up manufacturing plants and factories that can give better and more jobs to the people in the development of SCORE.  The development of SCORE, more than anything else, demands strong national discipline to make Sarawak to be continually attractive to foreign investors. 

Undoubtedly, Sarawak, which attained self government on July 22, 2010 and a full statehood through the formation of Malaysia on September 16, 1963 has been successful as the state has been blessed with leaders, who have the vision to unite the people and channel their energy and efforts to development in order to move forward. They were aware of the common desire and aspiration of the people in deciding to form Malaysia was to see that Sarawak could be developed to become a modern and progressive state. They wanted to see that the development that had already been started by leaders like YTM Allahyarham Tunku Abdul Rahman and the Father of Rural Development Allahyarham Tun Abdul Razak could be extended to Sarawak.

Obviously, the national leaders have been very sincere in carrying out their pledges to develop Sarawak.  For example, Miri town is now four times bigger than it used to be in 1963. The rapid growth of Miri, the second biggest town in Sarawak, is attributable to the willingness of the people to work together with their elected representatives in its development. Understandably, it has been quite easy to plan for the development of Miri town, which used to have plenty of empty lands, to enable it to expand to all sides.  However, its development includes reclaiming land from the sea and redirecting the mouth of Sungei Miri, which used to be shallow and dirty to a new area; not many developing countries could undertake such development.

Generally, the people, in spite of their diverse ethnic origins and backgrounds, have been able to live in peace and harmony among them.  They have strong sense of co-operation that transcends differences in ethnicities, religious beliefs and others in developing the state to become a place where the people can enjoy comfort in their lives.  Undoubtedly, the State has been able to meet the hopes and aspiration of the people, who have been poor, to become what they are today the people, who can look forward to the future with higher ambitions to achieve greater success in life. It is proof that the leadership from top to bottom comprise of people with high sense of responsibility in the service of the people, state and country.

Greater challenges ahead

Generally, community leaders, who were already adults in 1963, acknowledge that the progress and advancement that they can see with their own eyes were beyond their wildest dream and imagination in the 60s. It is proof that the common struggle has been able to bring about positive changes to the people, state and country. However, the people must take stalk of the success with a view to analyse and seriously consider their own roles in the common struggle in facing the greater challenges of development in future. The success can serve as a strong foundation for the State to move forward to achieve greater success in future.

The State has been successful as it has been blessed with leaders, who have vision and wisdom to promote unity among the people Independence in 1963. The people, in spite of their diversity, have been able to live in peace and harmony with each other.  They have strong sense of co-operation that transcends differences in ethnicities, religious beliefs and others in developing the state to become a place where the people can enjoy comfort in life. The State Government, more so since the early 80s, has been able to meet the hopes and aspiration of the people to become what they are today the people who can look forward with higher ambitions to achieve greater success in life. It is proof that the leadership from top to bottom comprise of people with high sense of responsibility in the service of the people, state and country. Now parents can hope that their children will be able to lead better livelihood than them in future. 

Before, the state did not have a university but now it can boast of four universities, possibly five in the next two to three years.   The common ambition of the parents is to raise the level of education, which is no longer restricted to people in towns or cities but to all Sarawakians or all Malaysians. In this respect, parents must endeavor to inspire and motivate their children, who are still in schools, to pursue higher studies to enable them to get jobs with good pay.  The state has already introduced proper systems of training and pursuing higher education for the new generation from the bottom upward. The new generation can achieve a brighter future as envisioned by vision 2020 as long as the people, together with the top, middle level and grass root leadership can work together to mobilize their strength  in pursing  the common aspiration.

Achievable dream

Even now the people can see that the dream of the year 2020 achievable quite comfortably provided the state and the country remain stable and the unity of the people remain intact. More importantly, the people must remain focused in serving the nation, in building their own future and uphold strong national discipline in the struggle for nation-building. The common ambition is make our children or grandchildren to be on the same par with Americans, Japanese, Europeans, who at one time were well above us.  That is the prospect of Malaysia today.  That is the destiny that the people must build for themselves in the next one generation.

The people in Sarawak have all the discipline, unity and determination to develop the State to become the richest state in Malaysia by the year 2030.  This is the dream of all good Sarawakians, all responsible politicians and the real leader, who has the feeling for love, care and concern for the people, the new generation children, who aspire for better life, in particular. 

Look what has happened in Japan after the war. They were poor in the 50s but they worked hard and they had the national discipline to develop the country to become the second biggest economy in the world by the 70s.  But the story did not stop there.  South Korea came up, the people worked hard and they had national discipline to show that they can do as well as the Japanese, in some cases even better. Last year, the Koreans produced the most number of patterns in terms of world products, new ideas and technology; they even overtook the Japanese and Americans. The success story, which has been proven to be workable, of Japan and South Korea is a good formula to follow by Sarawak and by extension Malaysia.

The other formula of success is, of course, China, which last month overtook Japan to become the second biggest economy in the world. China has been very successful because the people regard themselves to be united and focused on doing things.  They are prepared to work hard and learn everything from the world. As a consequence, China becomes the manufacturing house of the world. Goods are cheaper because of the presence of Chinese in the world market. More importantly, China has been able make some technologies that cannot be used in other countries in the world because they need bigger economies of scale.

Sacred treasures

At one time, China bought the technology from Germany from Siemens to build a fast moving train from Shanghai city to the airport. Now USA is asking China to license the application of the technology, which has been proven to be viable, to them to rebuild the railway system in the next 20 years. This is the success story of people, who stay united, work hard and have strong discipline in nation building.  Now the people must ask themselves whether they want Sarawak to be a state with strong economy or a state with a big democracy like Japan today. The economy of Japan has fallen behind China because the people have abandoned one of their sacred treasures which are the unity, discipline and focus of their people to work for their nation.

The people must have discipline and unity to safeguard political stability in order to achieve the common ambition to build Sarawak to become a progressive State that can show its own way in transforming the economy from the middle income to high income economy as outlined in the New Economics model towards the year 2020 and beyond. In other words, the people must preserve the healthy way of politics which should be motivated by the desire to serve the people and push state and the country to higher level of success to become a developed nation as envisioned by the Federal leadership.

The state has already become quite well known among foreign investors. For example, the State government has been having discussions with investors with interests to set up plants to produce high end products like aluminum, poly silicon, manganese, pulp and paper and others for export.   The state government, until the end of last year, received committed investments worth more than RM30 billion for projects in SCORE. It was a record breaking history for the state that should reflect the exceptionally high confidence of foreign investors in the government.  

Besides, the new generation will be trained for the jobs market not only in schools, colleges or universities but also in their work places.  However, they must have the determination to pursue higher studies or any forms of training to ensure that they will not   be left untrained in any jobs. Besides, the differences in salaries between people with tertiary education and those with college diploma qualifications must not remain too wide. This is understandable as all factories will be using technologies, which require people who do not only think but able to work with their hands as engineers, technologists and skilled workers in factories. The State will need more practical and skilled workers, whose salaries will be quite compatible with those having university degree qualifications. The new generation must orientate their ambitions to adjust themselves to changes taking place in the state and country.

Sarawak has the potentials to become more successful towards the year 2030 provided it remains stable; the people remain united and wise in choosing leaders that have wisdom and foresight to push the people to be on par with the Americans, Japanese, Europeans and others. Then the people can take their place in the world on the same level as those in developed nations. 

benuasains 

*pics source: google.com images