Analyst sees Upko losing more members

'They're struggling with their conscience over the party's decision to join the ruling coalition.'

Senior lecturer Lee Kuok Tiung does not discount the possibility of more Upko members quitting as they struggle to come to terms with the party’s stand in abandoning BN.

KOTA KINABALU: A political analyst has speculated that Upko will lose more members following the resignation of its youth chief, Arthur Sen.

Lee Kuok Tiung, a lecturer at Universiti Malaysia Sabah, told FMT he believed many Upko members were struggling to pacify their conscience over the party’s decision to abandon Barisan Nasional and join the ruling coalition.

Sen’s decision to quit might have been due to his inability to stomach that decision, he added.

Sen has not disclosed the reason for his resignation, which was reported on Monday.

Lee said it would be hard for conscientious Upko members to accept their party’s decision to join its election rivals so soon after the May 9 polls.

Upko’s acting president, Wilfred Madius Tangau, announced on May 10 that the party’s supreme council had unanimously agreed to form a coalition government with Parti Warisan Sabah and the Pakatan Harapan parties of PKR and DAP.

Lee said it was a “rash decision that left party members in a dilemma”.

“Just imagine,” he said, “you were attacking Warisan and Pakatan Harapan all the while. Suddenly, a day after GE14, you cross over to join them and expect all your members to work with them.”

He said the episode would have been seen in a different light had Upko made its decision after receiving feedback from the grassroots.

“Upko can claim to be king maker to please itself, but it cannot shut up the voters who label it as a frog,” he added.

Before May 10, Barisan Nasional and Warisan-PH each had 29 state seats, with the remaining two held by Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku.

In defending Upko’s decision, Tangau said the people of Sabah would benefit from having a government allied to the federal government.

Lee said factional rivalry within Upko could also have been a cause for Sen’s resignation.

“It’s an open secret that there’s rivalry between Tangau’s camp and that of vice-president Ewon Ebin,” he said.

Ewon got into loggerheads with the Upko leadership soon after winning the Ranau parliamentary seat in GE13.

At the party’s triennial congress in 2013, he lost the race for the deputy presidency to Tangau by eight votes. He challenged the result, alleging that 415 ballot papers were issued when only 405 delegates had initially registered. However, the result was eventually upheld.

Tangau became the party’s acting president after founding president Bernard Dompok stepped down in 2014.

Doubts over whether Ewon would be fielded in GE14 were removed after he was asked to defend his Ranau seat. However, he lost to PKR’s Jonathan Yasin, who won by a 1,076-vote majority in a three-way battle. - FMT