KOTA KINABALU: The newly appointed Federal Cabinet is “Malaya-centric” former Chief Minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee said.

“The explanations coming out from Kuala Lumpur is that Sabah and Sarawak will be accommodated in the second batch of ministers,” said Yong, who is also the Sabah Progressive Party president.

“What this essentially means is that Malaya will form the Cabinet first. Borneo can join later,” he said.

“This is a reflection of the 1957 and 1963 mindset – Malaya formed first. And Sabah and Sarawak joined later. This is not the concept of EQUAL STATUS as promised by Pakatan Harapan or Barisan Nasional for Sabah and Sarawak,” Yong added.

Going by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s words that the allocation of ministerial posts (meaning power sharing in post-UMNO Malaysia) was based on the number of seats won by parties, three of the 14 new ministers should be from Sabah and Sarawak This was because Pakatan Harapan and Parti Warisan won 121 of the 222 parliamentary seats.

Of the total, DAP, PKR and independents won six, four and two seats in Sarawak respectively.

In Sabah, DAP and PKR won three seats each while Parti Warisan won eight seats for a total of 26 seats from the two East Malaysian states.

SAPP, whose only boss is Sabahans, voices out the feelings of Sabahans and Sarawakians why the so called Malaysia cabinet is actually a Malaya cabinet.

“PKR, DAP and Warisan leaders cannot speak out because they cannot offend their bosses in KL,” he said.

“If they speak out and offend their KL bosses, they will not get posts in the new federal government,” said Yong who was the sole SAPP MP candidate who lost his bid for the Kota Kinabalu seat.

He pointed out that Sabah and Sarawak have played key roles in the 12th and 13th General Elections in 2008 and 2013 respectively as BN would not have won the polls if voters in both states did not back the coalition then.

In the 14th General Election, PH would not have won if not because of the 26 MPs (out of 56 MPs in Borneo) won by PH and Warisan, Yong noted.

“If not because of PH/PW in Sabah and Sarawak, Najib would still be PM, Anwar still in jail, and Dr. Mahathir an opposition leader,” he said.

“I will continue to point out the inconvenient truths that both Sabah BN, Sabah PH and Warisan cannot voice out,” he said.

“Let me voice out their frustrations,” said Yong in adding that SAPP had promised to keep the flames of Sabah rights burning even though it lost in the election.

“We cannot afford to let Sabah rights be buried in the so-called two parties system”. Since the Malaya parties in Sabah cannot speak out against their bosses in Malaya, let true Sabah parties speak up for them,” he added.