It's official: Musa Aman sits out of Sabah snap polls

Musa Aman who triggered the Sabah snap polls after initiating a failed political coup will be sitting out of the electoral contest.

This is after he did not turn up at the Dewan Serbaguna Libaran where the nomination process was held for the state seats of Gum-Gum, Sungai Manila, and Sungai Sibuga.

Musa was the incumbent assemblyperson for Sungai Sibuga and had expressed interest in Sungai Manila.

Sungai Manila is a new state seat carved out of Sungai Sibuga. Many of Musa's supporters were also moved to Sungai Manila under the redelineation of electoral boundaries.

Musa's absence in Libaran had raised questions on whether he might contest other state seats but he did not turn up at other nomination centres either.

When the nomination process closed state-wide at 10am, it became apparent that Musa was sitting out of the state election.

Umno had decided to field Mokran Ingkat in Sungai Manila and Mohamad Hamsan Awang Supian in Sungai Sibuga.

After the announcement on Thursday, speculation was rife that Musa may turn to Bersatu to field him as a candidate.

However, this did not materialise, averting a clash between Bersatu and Umno.

Instead of turning up for nomination today, Musa took to social media to air grievances about his absence from the candidates' list.

He shared a Malaysiakini article on Instagram about a group of Umno branch leaders within the Libaran Umno division criticising the party's decision not to field Musa.

The posting took place just as the nomination process was underway.

Musa's absence from the Sabah electoral contest means his ambitions to make a comeback as Sabah's chief minister may be at an end.

Bung Moktar Radin, who succeeded Musa Aman as the Sabah Umno chief, is a potential chief ministerial candidate if the opposition coalition wins.

On July 29, Musa announced he had secured enough defections to take over the Sabah government and had tried to get himself sworn in as the chief minister.

However, he was thwarted after the state's governor, Juhar Mahiruddin consented to Sabah incumbent chief minister Shafie Apdal's request to dissolve the state assembly, paving the way to the Sabah election on Sept 26.

It was the second blow for Musa, whose coalition won a narrow majority in the 2018 general election but was ousted through defections engineered by Shafie, who is the Warisan president.

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- Mkini