Explain Umno leaders’ claims, DCM Yee told

Allegations of a group enticing voters in Sepanggar to switch their voting address to Kota Kinabalu have been linked to Sabah DCM Dr Yee Moh Chai.

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) wants Sabah Deputy

Chief Minister Dr Yee Moh Chai to explain allegations by two Umno politicians that Sepanggar residents are being enticed to register as voters in the Kota Kinabalu parliamentary constituency where he is the elected representative at state level.

The opposition party said it was strange that Yee who is also State Resource Development and Information Technology Minister, had remained silent about something that was said to be happening in his own constituency.

“The latest allegations of a voter relocation scheme are serious ones. They were made by senior Umno leaders who have publicly called for the police to investigate the matter.

“As deputy chief minister of Sabah and a state cabinet minister, it is only appropriate that Dr Yee come forward to clear himself,” said Wong Yit Ming, the party’s point man in the city.

He was commenting on renewed allegations that the political operatives who appeared to be linked to Yee were offering RM500 cash to Malay voters in Sepangar parliamentary constituency to change their voting address to neighbouring Kota Kinabalu parliamentary constituency.

Sepanggar Umno chief Jumat Idris and Karambunai state assembly representative Jainab Ahmad, who is Yee’s deputy in the ministry, claimed that many Malay voters in Telipok Ria, Kampung Warisan, Likas and Inanam had reported that a group of Chinese were going round making the offers of RM500 as well as such goodies like bags of rice, water tanks and even laptops, to entice the voters to change their address.

Jumat said he was told that the group has an operation base in Likas Square and an NGO office. It is understood that Likas Square is managed and owned by businessmen linked to both Chief Minister Musa Aman and Yee.

The property is also the location of the state government’s secretive online media office that runs the Insight Sabah website, dedicated mainly to parsing the government especially Musa.

The fresh allegations of impropriety matched a SAPP youth wing report in early October that a voter registration drive was being conducted at Likas Square and would-be voters who had gathered there claimed that they were being given cash to register as voters in Kota Kinabalu.

Dubious tactic

SAPP lodged a police report about the exercise and the Election Commission issued a warning days later that such practices were against the law.

While Jumat’s claim may not be new, the amount now alleged being handed out as inducement has increased from RM200 to RM500.

Wong said yesterday that Yee cannot continue to ignore the issue and should clear his name if the allegations are untrue.

Failing to do so, he said, would only confirm the public notion that he was resorting to dubious means to secure votes in an election by changing the voter demographics of Kota Kinabalu parliamentary constituency.

Wong also described the approach as unscrupulous and tantamount to pawning the Chinese community’s interest for a selfish agenda.

The Kota Kinabalu parliamentary constituency is currently in the hands of DAP’s Hiew King Cheu. Yee is the state assembly representative for Api Api which falls within its borders.