KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman has once again come under criticism from within the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition for behaving like a dictator much like his predecessors who were overthrown.
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader VK Liew said the political situation in the state has evolved into an environment where no single party or chief minister can do as it or he pleases unlike in the past.
He said that unlike in the past where the state was ruled by a single political party such as Usno, Berjaya and PBS, the current state government is made up of component parties from BN since 1994.
He was replying to a recent statement by PBS president cum Deputy Chief Minister, Joseph Pairin Kitingan, that Musa had the prerogative power to choose who he pleases in his cabinet.
“In this respect, the power is not absolute and Pairin is therefore incorrect,” said Liew who is also the MP for Sandakan and a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.
“It is no longer one party’s rule in Sabah, no thanks to Pairin,” Liew said taking a poke at Pairin who is seen as instrumental in allowing the state to be ruled by peninsular-based political parties.
Liew disclosed this to reporters at his monthly’s ‘Bringing Service To the People’ at the Medium cost Flat, Taman Recreation, Kg. Sim-Sim, in Sandakan, yesterday.
His party is troubled that Musa has moved to put his party out in the cold and used former state political powerhouse PBS to nullify its influence in the government.
“When exercising such prerogative power as the Chief Minister of Sabah and chairman of BN in Sabah, the only consideration should be that of the interest of BN,” Liew argued.
“The chief minister cannot be influenced by any extenuating circumstances, whether personal or otherwise.
“To do so, will make any decision bad and may lead to many dissatisfaction and criticisms as it now shows,” he said.
PBS to gain
LDP has been voicing out its dissatisfaction over the recent reshuffle of the state cabinet which saw the appointment of PBS deputy president cum State Resource Development and Information Technology Minister, Dr Yee Moh Chai as the Deputy Chief Minister, replacing Peter Pang En Yin who joined Gerakan on March 16.
Pang was a former LDP member who quit the party in September last year, in protest against LDP’s disagreement with Musa’s style of leadership and was rewarded by the chief minister who retained him in his cabinet.
Liew described Musa’s decision to appoint Yee as the Deputy Chief Minister as a “wrong choice” and a “bad precedent”, arguing that by convention, the chief minister should appoint three different component party representatives as his three deputy chief ministers, with each representing the three main communities in Sabah – the Kadazandusun, the Muslim Bumiputera and the Chinese.
Liew stressed that the only “reasonable” and “fair” solution was to appoint someone from LDP to the post, as it was the only local-based Chinese-dominated party within the state BN.
LDP under Musa has now been reduced to having only one representative in the state cabinet with its vice-president cum Merotai state assemblyman, Pang Yuk Ming. He is the Assistant Minister of Infrastructure Development.
Peter Pang’s departure also left LDP with only two elected state representatives namely Yuk Ming and its secretary-general, Teo Chee Kang who is the state assemblyman for Tanjung Kapor.
Talk is rife among political pundits in the state that if LDP continues to be hostile and critical of Musa, it may lose all its three remaining seats in the coming general election.
PBS stands to gain from the ouster of LDP.
Dictatorial approach
Moves by Musa has given the impression to many that the state government does not consider the Chinese vote as important as PBS’ non-Bumiputera electorate.
PBS has 12 state seats under its control while the other BN component parties such as Upko has six seats, Gerakan Sabah (3), and PBRS (1) and Sabah Umno control of 32 state seats.
According to analysts, Musa sees the political equation as an easy win for BN even without the LDP and the Chinese vote.
The political scenario under Musa appears to be taking a leaf out of the book of previous state governments with a dictatorial approach to governance much like Usno’s Mustapha Harun, Berjaya’s Harris Salleh and PBS’ Pairin, according to analysts.
Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his book ‘Doctor in the House’ remarked on this phenomenon in Sabah but added that all of them had subsequently paid the price by being removed from power. Queville To
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