KUCHING: Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) secretary-general Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi said there is no issue of GPS not being able to cooperate with PAS.
“For me there is no problem to cooperate with PAS because for the last 30 months we, GPS, have been cooperating with PAS in one government, so I don’t see any problem.
“GPS can work in one cabinet or one government later (with PAS),” he said in an exclusive interview.
Nanta said that racial issues are not only raised by PAS, but also by other political parties including DAP and Umno.
“So for me, almost all parties play on racial issues or take advantage of racial issues.
“However, for our country to move forward, it is not only PAS that should stop playing and promoting racial issues, but all political parties, groups and all Malaysians should stop using racism as their political issue or capital.
“When it comes to religion, GPS does have a firm stance, so we want to insist that any party, including PAS should not use this religious issue to the extreme.
“To protect the interests of Sarawak in this issue, we will insist that we ask for autonomy in the state of Sarawak as stated in the constitution,” he said.
Nanta pointed out that there is no official religion in Sarawak, so it is best to let Sarawak take care of its own interests.
“All parties, including GPS should be less political because the current situation in our country is already too political.
“We need to focus our energy and our minds on things that are more important for us to take care of the economic interests and well-being of the people.
“The election is over and we all know the results are uncertain and that is why we have a hung parliament, so it is quite difficult not to discuss politics protractedly, but we need to reduce politics and we should focus our energy on national development, ensuring our economy recovers quickly, not to mention the world is forecast to face economic turmoil next year,” he said.
Because of this, he said the country needs to prepare something to face the global economic downturn next year.
Meanwhile, Nanta explained that GPS has made a stand and would leave it to the wisdom of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to decide, set or make decisions on which party becomes the country’s newest government and who would be the prime minister.
