Wan Junaidi told FMT the change in title will not bring about any financial returns for the person helming the post and that this was a matter of status.
He said the “premier” title was not completely foreign, pointing out that the leaders of state governments in Australia were also called by the same name.
“Australia is federated too, just like us, whereby the whole of Australia has a federal government and a federal Parliament, and they also have the state governments and state assemblies,” he said.
He said whatever the Sarawak government deemed was right to do, including the decision on the change of title, should be no issue as long as it could be passed in the state assembly.
Wan Junaidi said the only minor issue would be coming up with a Malay word for the new title, saying the state government might have to consult Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka for this.
He maintained that this was not just a cosmetic change, as it involved the status of the people of Sarawak.
The change in title will be made in a constitutional amendment that will be tabled at the state assembly today. The bill also proposes to change the title of “assistant minister” to “deputy minister”.
The proposed change comes days after the Federal Constitution was amended to re-establish Sarawak and Sabah as one of three equal partners in the formation of Malaysia in 1963.
Yesterday, Sarawak’s tourism, creative industry and performing arts minister Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said the title change would not bring about significant change but was only meant to “refine terms”.
What about devolution of power, says lawyer
Sarawak-based lawyer Simon Siah said the change in title in itself was nothing to shout about, though he expressed interest in how the “premier” would be addressed in the Malay language.
He told FMT that what was more important was what other bills would be proposed in Parliament when it came to giving the Bornean state more powers, and how many MPs from the peninsula would support this.
“To know the implication, we probably have to see what happens at the federal level, whether there will be more devolution of the federal power to Sarawak.
“So unless the Parliament amends the ‘federal and state list’ to devolve more power to Sarawak, I do not see any big difference by changing the name,” he said.