Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian has chided Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud for assigning his special advisor to handle a debate challenge issued by the opposition.

NONE “In my opinion, the chief minister must take responsibility (to handle debates). He is just trying to avoid it and push it to someone else.

“The chief minister must know about NCR land. It looks like either he is not aware of the truth about NCR land issues or he is ignoring it,” Baru told Malaysiakini .

Baru was responding to Taib’s announcement yesterday during his policy speech at the Sarawak BN convention in Kuching, that Adenan Satim would take on the opposition in debates, but did not specify his opponent.

Taib had been challenged by the state opposition on a variety of issues, most recently by Baru, on the topic of whether the state government was “grabbing” native customary rights (NCR) land.

Previously, Taib had accepted the challenge, on condition that Baru adduces evidence that NCR land was indeed being grabbed.

‘Junior lawyer’ to face Adenan

taib mahmud pc annoucement on sarawak state election 240406 Despite Taib ( left ) now delegating the task to someone else, Baru said his challenge to the chief minister, and not his proxies, stand.

“We still want to give him an opportunity to accept our challenge. The deadline only expires on March 10. We will inform the chief minister of the debate venue and time soon,” he said.

If Adenan instead of Taib shows up for the debate, Baru said that a “junior lawyer” would stand in for him.

Baru is a practising lawyer who is an expert on NCR matters. Some of his clients have been successful in their suits against the state government for violating their land rights.

On Taib’s claim during his speech that the public should support BN because it was a bigger boat, albeit one with “holes”, Baru said that voters should consider the “smaller boat” because it was safer.

“Since he admitted that the BN boat has holes, it will sink sooner or later.

"The opposition boat, no matter how small, will still take you safely across the river,” he quipped.