1.) TEXT OF THE MAIDEN SPEECH OF DOMINIQUE NG KIM HO, THE MEMBER FOR PADUNGAN, IN THE DUN OF SARAWAK 26 JULY 2006

Tuan Speaker,

I. PREAMBLE

Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to address this August Assembly and to participate in the Motions of Thanks for the Address of the TYT. It is with the deepest of humility and the greatest of honour that I assume this heavy yet most noble responsibility, that of representing the people of Sarawak from the seat which is my birth place and my home town, of Padungan.


I also note with the greatest of pride that I am the first duly elected YB from my Party, Parti KeADILan Rakyat, to take my place in this August House. Even though Parti KeADILan Rakyat is a very young party indeed in Sarawakian politics and this only the 2nd time we have participated in a Sarawak State elections, already it has shown that it can win the confidence, respect and trust of the people of Sarawak. Even more significantly is that it can win in an overwhelmingly Chinese majority (over 90% Chinese) constituency, thus dispelling once and for all that Parti KeADILan Rakyat is a Malay party or worse, that it is a Muslim party, as some mischievous parties were wont to distort during the elections.


For the very first time in the short political history of Sarawak we are witnessing the emergence of a new Sarawak Political Alliance, that of the Barisan Bersatu Sarawak. And this Barisan Bersatu Sarawak is a Barisan that will one day, God Willing, replace the BN as the government of Sarawak as surely as the fact that the day will follow the night and replace the darkness of the BN rule with the sunshine brought by the Barisan Bersatu Sarawak, and as surely as the sun will rise in the east and set in the west!


The possibility of the Barisan Bersatu Sarawak replacing the BN? You might laugh and even deride. Yes the DAP is not with us yet. Yes there are only 2 of us and true even as we speak, we might be reduced to only 1. But the DAP too started with only 1 in the last election. Look at them today. There are 6 of them now in this August Chamber. I call them the Magnificent 6 because every one of them has proven to be a very ardent and dedicated advocate of the people that they represent. Who knows by the next round they would be 16! So is it so impossible a feat? Everyone in and outside Sarawak thought that the Opposition would be wiped out again in the recent elections. Or at most get only 1 or 2 seats. As we did in the last elections. But against all predictions and against all odds the opposition has prevailed, nay and even caused an upset victory, instead. It was in all accounts a political earth quake in Sarawak, and in Kuching, it was a political tsunami, wiping out all but one of the 5 seats held by the SUPP!

The victory in Kuching for the opposition is particularly sweet and historic for this is the first time in some 30 years that the opposition has won in a Kuching state seat. The last time there was a victory esp in Padungan was in 1974 when Tan Sri Datuk Stephen Yong Kuet Tze the founder of the SUPP lost to a relatively unknown SNAP candidate by the name of Lo Foot Kee.

As for the magnificent victory of the DAP, my first party, over the SUPP in Pending, it could almost be said as being an impossible feat. Who would have expected Datuk Sim Kheng Hui a long time veteran and strong man of SUPP, who had won his previous elections with majorities in the thousands, and the last time with a 6000 vote majority over me and Voon Lee Shan, to have lost this round and with a thumping majority of 4372, a turn around of some 10,000 votes!

In politics if my over 20 years involvement has taught me anything, it is that nothing in politics is impossible and that nothing can be taken for granted. Indeed politics is all about the art of the possible and of turning impossibilities into realities.