Sabah and Sarawak Plays Kingmaker!

Blogger Raja Petra insinuates Sabah and Sarawak MPs may go over to Anwar if Najib does not reward East Malaysia amply

KOTA KINABALU: “Sabah and Sarawak know they are now the Kingmakers.”

“If they stay with Barisan Nasional then Anwar (Ibrahim) is fixed (original word replaced). If they jump then Najib (Razak) is fixed (original word replaced),” states controversial blogger Raja Petra.

He writes: “But before they make the decision whether to stay or to jump, they want to know what’s in it for them.
“Can they get extra federal cabinet posts? One Deputy Prime Minister’s post maybe?

Can they see an increase in oil royalty from 5% to 20%? Can they get more autonomy like what the 18- and 20-Point Agreements promised them?”


In his THE CORRIDORS OF POWER column which was published in Malaysia-Today on Thursday,

The blogger, who now spends his days in the United Kingdom when not meeting with the police in places such as Jakarta to give statements, had this to say:

“His (Anwar’s) real game plan is to ‘steal’ the government through crossovers — just like Barisan Nasional ‘stole’ it through election fraud.

“What Najib did not suspect was that some other BN leaders from Sabah and Sarawak wanted to follow Lajim Ukin (ex-Beaufort) and Wilfred Bumburing (ex-Tuaran) when they crossed over. However, Anwar told them to stay put in Barisan Nasional and contest the general election under the ruling party banner and then cross over after the general election.

“Many may have been puzzled as to why Pakatan Rakyat created such a mess in Sabah and Sarawak. Even a political novice knows that you need Sabah and Sarawak to march in to Putrajaya since these two East Malaysian states control 25% of the seats in parliament.

“Sabah and Sarawak will always control 25% of the seats even if they have only 10% of the nation’s population. That is what was decided in the Malaysian Agreement. (Hence the one-man-one-vote system cannot work in Malaysia because then Sabah and Sarawak can never have 25% of the seats in parliament).

Raja Petra, or Pete to some, is also alleging that it may appear like he (Anwar) messed up in Sabah and Sarawak.
“Actually he was not interested to win Sabah and Sarawak through the ballot box because he knew that would be very difficult to do and you would be wasting a lot of time and money while achieving very little.

“Hence he just made a token effort in Sabah and Sarawak and did not worry too much about how many seats he would win. After all, he was not going to win that many anyway, other than the ones that DAP won in the predominantly Chinese constituencies.

Of course he wanted Sabah and Sarawak. But he wanted them not through the elections. He wanted them after the elections once he knows how many seats he can win in West Malaysia and how more seats he needs to be able to form the federal government.

“So now, while the entire nation is focusing on the rallies that are going to be organised all over the country, Anwar is secretly negotiating with the Barisan Nasional Members of Parliament from Sabah and Sarawak.”

Petra claims that Pakatan Rakyat needs at least 23 more parliamentary seats to form the federal government. 25 would be better. Then Pakatan Rakyat would have six more seats than Barisan Nasional.

He also charged that Anwar’s ‘war room’ masterminds are Dr Rahim Ghouse, Saifuddin Nasution, Johari Abdul and Azmin Ali. These are the people hatching all the plots and planning the strategies.

Petra goes on to add that the horse-trading is now going on.

“Anwar is making his offers and Najib will have to counter-offer something better. So we may yet see Anwar become the new Prime Minister if Najib cannot better Anwar’s offer and the Members of Parliament from Sabah and Sarawak cross over.

“In the meantime, while all this is going on, Najib has Dr Mahathir to worry about while Anwar has to try to pacify Azmin to make sure he does not jump if he is not made the Menteri Besar of Selangor.

“If not then Anwar might as well abandon the negotiations because the crossovers from Sabah and Sarawak will be neutralised by Azmin and gang once they declare themselves ‘independents’.