‘Premier’ does not have equal status as PM, says Sarawak minister

KUCHING, Feb 17 — The term ‘premier’ to address the Sarawak chief minister does not denote that the Sarawak government leader is on par with the Malaysian prime minister, said Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.

He said Sarawak at the end of the day is still part of Malaysia and the Malaysian prime minister will always be the country’s head of government, but the term ‘premier’ should say that the post is “a little bit lower than prime minister and but higher than chief minister”.

“The only thing why we want the Sarawak head of government to be known as premier is because we see premier is higher than the chief minister,” he told a press conference at the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) Complex yesterday.

He added by doing so, it should also send a message to Malaysians that Sarawak does not wish to get out of Malaysia but only wants a more significant status within the Federation.

He explained Sarawak’s head of government should be called premier because Sarawak, a former British colony, is one of the regions that formed the Federation of Malaysia, thus the head of the Sarawak government should not be called a chief minister of the state because Sarawak is equal partners with Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia.

Thus should Sarawak’s head of government be known as chief minister, it would only denote that Sarawak is merely one of the states in Malaysia, although Sarawak formed Malaysia together with Malaya, Sabah and Singapore as one of the four regions in the new nation, he added.

Apart from that, Abdul Karim said there are other Commonwealth nations like Australia and Canada where the Head of the Federation is styled as prime minister and Heads of Regions constituting the Federation is styled as premier, while the other sub-regions or states are headed by Chief Ministers.

 “If we were to see other countries such as Australia or Canada, those countries have a prime minister as the head of their governments and premier as head of their respective regions,” he said. — Borneo Post