KOTA KINABALU, June 16 — "Thousands” of Sabah PKR members are expected to quit the party this Friday, its acting strategic and election machinery director Datuk Karim Ghani claimed today.

The move is seen as the latest political attempt to shake the Warisan-led Sabah government.

Karim claimed these members were unhappy with the state leadership and wanted to be aligned to the Perikatan Nasional (PN) bloc, which controls the federal government. Warisan is seen to be aligned to Pakatan Harapan, which is seeking a return to Putrajaya.

However, Karim declined to reveal details, saying only that he believes about 5,000 branch leaders and members will quit. He named Kota Belud, Putatan and Keningau branch leaders or their deputies as among them.

He clarified that so far, none of the two assemblymen or two members MPs were involved in the alleged mass exodus.

"We don’t have a big representation in the state anyway. PKR seems to be shrinking in Sabah.

"The leaders and members got together and we talked about it amongst ourselves and decided to leave,” he said.

He said that they would have a few hundred people present on Friday at the resignation and press conference but only 30 people would be allowed indoors as per police instruction.

"We are also arranging for our grassroots leaders and members to come down from Keningau, Tenom, Kudat... all over the state,” he said.

"For now we haven’t decided our political direction. We are just concentrating on leaving PKR,” he said.

"We’ll talk about the other issues on Friday when we meet,” Karim said.

He added that their gripes were mostly with the state PKR leadership, adding that they have not discussed if they will continue to support Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal afterwards.

A letter being distributed on social media said the scheduled press conference will be held at 11am, June 19, at the Sinar Mustika Restaurant in Putatan near here.

Shafie said his Warisan government is under pressure from the PN federal government, which is seeking its ouster through inducement, enticement and other tactics to deprive it of support.

Yesterday, two assemblymen from Upko, a component of the state government, quit the party and pledged their support for Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who heads Bersatu and the federal government.