I want to announce that the DAP/Pakatan Harapan candidate for Sandakan Parliament will be the incumbent and Sabah DAP State Chairman Stephen Wong, while Calvin Chong will be the DAP/PH candidate for the Sabah state assembly seat of Elopura and Frankie Poong the DAP/PH candidate for Tanjung Papat state assembly seat.

This is a significant visit to me to Sandakan, marking the 40th anniversary of my first visit to Sandakan in 1978 – the year Sandakan created history in sending the first “Rocket” from Sabah to Parliament.

As the DAP International Secretary, Teo Nie Ching, mentioned just now, the Rocket symbol will not be seen in Peninsular Malaysia in the 14th General Election and would only be seen in Sabah and Sarawak, as we have made the critical decision to use the Pakatan Harapan common logo in the supreme effort to win the 14th General Election and establish the Pakatan Harapan Federal Government in Putrajaya.

I do not deny that this is a very hard and heart-wrenching decision, with many DAP leaders shedding tears over it, but this supreme sacrifice is the DAP’s contribution to make everyone in Malaysia, particularly in Peninsular Malaysia to rise above race, religion, region or even political party in the 14GE to vote solidly as one Malaysian people to Save Malaysia from hurtling along the trajectory of a failed, rogue and kleptocratic state.

Nie Ching is right. Sabah and Sarawak will be the envy of DAP leaders in Peninsular Malaysia, as the Rocket symbol will only be seen in Sabah and Sarawak although the Rocket spirit will soar strong and high all over Malaysia.

DAP has been accused of being peninsular party, but with the Rocket only to be seen in Sabah and Sarawak, it would appear that DAP has become a Sabah/Sarawak-based political party!

The video we saw just now showing the decline of Sandakan is the best rebuttal to the Barisan Nasional’s 2018 General Election Manifeso, with the theme, “Bersama BN, Hebatkan Negaraku”.

Sandakan is the best proof that “Bersama BN, Hancurkan Negaraku”!

Sandakan, which was the former capital of British North Borneo fron rhe years 1884-1946, was formerly known as “Little Hong Kong”. But it has failed to live up to its early promise, and instead of becoming equivalent to Hong Kong, it has become a “Little Philippines”!

The same applies to the whole of Malaysia, for in the past half a century, we have failed to live up to the Malaysian Dream, and instead of being a show-case to the world of an united, harmonious, successful, progressive and prosperous nation created out of the best of the diverse races, languages, religions and cultures had meet inconfluence in Malaysia, we are scorned and mocked by the whole world as a global kleptocracy.

The 14GE is the last opportunity for Malaysians to tell the whole world that they do not want Malaysia to become a global kleptocracy.

The Barisan Nasional 14GE manifesto promised to make Malaysia into a greater country. How is this possible when in the past nine years under the Najib premiership, Malaysia had failed to shown any signs of greatness in many important aspects of national life?

We do not have a great Prime Minister who is reviled worldwide as a 1MDB and kleptocratic Prime Minister.

We do not have a great Parliament, when in the last six days of Parliament, the Speaker and the Deputy Speakers developed a peculiar blindness where they could not see me, although I had daily and diligently attended Parliament. Furthermore, they have developed a special disease where MPs cannot ask questions and debate the 1MDB scandal which had given Malaysia the 3Is – the infamy, ignominy and iniquity – of a global kleptocrcy, doing absolutely nothing to clear or purge Malaysia of the epithet of a global kleptocracy.

We do not have a great judiciary and justice system – or today, Tan Sri Richard Malanjum would be the Chief Justice of Malaysia and Sabahans and Malaysians told the real reason why the first Sabahan to be made Attorney-General had been summarily sacked from his office in July 2015!

How can Malaysia be great again under Barisan Nasional when the Barisan Nasional is responsible for Malaysia’s fall from greatness.

Only a Pakatan Harapan Federal Government can make Malaysia great again – but first we must address the reasons which have caused Malaysia’s fall from greatness!

(Speech at the Sandakan DAP 14th General Election Preparations Dinner held in Sandakan on Sunday, 8th April 2018 at 10 pm)