Tupong assemblyman Fazzrudin Abdul Rahman said Awang should understand the impact of renaming the position as it meant a lot to the people of Sarawak.

His comments come after Awang’s remarks that Sarawak should reconsider its decision to change the title of its state government leader, as there were long-term implications in doing so.

One of the implications, he said, was the perception that there was a prime minister at the state level.

Fazzrudin said the state assembly, being the supreme law-making body in Sarawak, had passed the Constitution of the State of Sarawak (Amendment) Bill 2022, with the support of the members of the House.

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

Fazzrudin added that all this while, there had been no substantive distinction between Sarawak and other states, such as Melaka and Penang, which also used “chief minister” to refer to their head of the state government.

He said the designation of “premier” was 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.

“Consequentially, after the Federal Constitution amendments to Articles 1(2) and 160, the term premier reflects Sarawak’s elevated status as one of the three partners forming Malaysia, uplifting Sarawak’s image among the people in other states.

“We shouldn’t let mere technicalities in linguistics and lexicology usurp the rights and status of Sarawak. It would be a disservice for DBP to hold such views against Sarawakians,” he said.