POINTLESS VOTING FOR PAKATAN

By : QUEVILLE TO

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) has reminded voters that under the Constitution of Sabah, only a political party with a majority of seats in the Sabah Legislative Assembly shall form the Sabah government.

“Unregistered parties and unregistered coalition of parties and NGOs are not qualified under the law to be elected as governments,” its president Yong Teck Lee said in a statement here.

The target of his reprimand is Pakatan Rakyat, the loose coalition of opposition parties and friendly groupings which remains an unregistered body.

Yong, who tried to seal an election pact with the Anwar Ibrahim-led Pakatan in order to reduce the field of contenders in next month’s election, said it would be a waste to vote for candidates fielded by the coalition for the state constituencies.

Yong reiterated that in order to fulfil its struggle for political autonomy, SAPP would contest a majority of state seats so that the Sabah government would be elected by the people of Sabah and answerable only to the people of Sabah.

“SAPP believes that this Barisan Nasional regime can be toppled through the ballot box at both the state and federal levels.

“Unlike Pakatan whose leaders have already conceded Sabah to the BN, SAPP believes that the Sabah BN government can be voted out on May 5.

“This has happened a few times in Sabah’s 50-year political history and can happen again on May 5, he said.

SAPP will contest 41 state and eight parliamentary seats.

Yong, a former chief minister, said in parliamentary and state seats not contested by the party, “SAPP will support the strongest opposition candidate who can beat the BN candidate”.

“As for the 41 state seats, 38 candidates will be announced tonight. The remaining three seats will be announced very soon pending a firm and clear picture of what STAR [State Reform Party] and other opposition parties plan to do.

“Our aim is that the BN must be defeated. We did not expect that the infighting between PKR/PAS/DAP to be so intensely divisive to the extent that the chances of the opposition in capturing the state seats concerned is now jeopardised.

“If we had known earlier that disarray within Pakatan would be so crippling, we would have made preparations to contest more state seats.

“We will reveal these seats in the next one or two days after we know the final outcome of the infighting between PKR/PAS/DAP,” he added.