KUCHING, Feb 23 — Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) deputy youth chief Fazzrudin Abdul Rahman has urged Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka’s (DBP) board of control chairman Prof Datuk Awan Sariyan to respect the Sarawak State Legislative Assembly’s (DUN) decision in changing the title of the state government leader from “Chief Minister” to “Premier”.

“While the learned professor had argued that there will be long term implications to the use of the term, I humbly urge him to respect the decision of the DUN as well as the Sarawak Constitution,” Fazzrudin said in a statement today.

He was reacting to Awang’s recent call for Sarawak to reconsider its decision over the title change.

Awang was reported by Utusan Malaysia as saying that there were long term implications to the use of the term, one of which was creating the perception that there was a prime minister at the state level.

Fazzrudin, who is also the chief political secretary to the chief minister insisted that the DUN, being the supreme law making body in Sarawak, had passed The Constitution of the State of Sarawak (Amendment) Bill 2022, which had obtained the support of the members of the august House.

This has allowed Sarawak to assert itself and its status as one of the partners in the formation of the Federation of Malaysia, the Tupong assemblyman said.

“All this while, there has been no substantive differentiation between Sarawak and other states in Malaysia which is also using the ‘Chief Minister’ term to name its head of government.

“The designation of ‘Premier’ is a similar set-up practised in other Commonwealth regions where the head of the federation is styled as the prime minister and heads of regions constituting the federation are styled as Premiers,” he pointed out.

“Consequentially, after the Federal Constitution amendments to Article 1(2) and Article 160, the term ‘Premier’ reflects exactly that, which is Sarawak’s elevated status as one of the three partners forming Malaysia and it also uplifts Sarawak’s image among the people in other states,” he added.

Fazzrudin therefore urged the professor to understand the impact of renaming the term as it means a lot to the people in Sarawak, and shouldn’t let mere technicalities in linguistic and lexicon to usurp the rights and status of Sarawak.

“It would be a disservice for DBP to hold such against Sarawakians,” he stressed. — Borneo Post Online