KOTA KINABALU, Sept 9 — Tan Sri Musa Aman today announced that he would be contesting the Sungai Manila seat one of the 13 new seats in the Libaran parliamentary constituency.

In a Facebook posting, the former Sabah chief minister and Sungai Sibuga incumbent said he will contest the seat but stopped short of explaining why the change.

“I’m going back to Sg Manila,” he said. 

His desire for the switch is not something new to party insiders but a source said that it was still under negotiations with Sabah Umno chairman Datuk Seri Bung Mokhtar Radin.

“Internal politics. They don’t think he has the influence there anymore,” said a party source.

Meanwhile, University Malaysia Sarawak political analyst Arnold Puyok said many of the party supporters may have moved to Parti Warisan Sabah or Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia during his absence following the last general election (GE14).

“His key people may have left to join Warisan, so he might have lost many of his supporters and key party machinery in Sungai Sibuga.

“By going to a different constituency, he can rebuild his machinery. That’s how I look at this,” said Puyok.

Musa had won Sungai Sibuga with a 2,184 majority in the 2018 election, suffering over 80 per cent loss in majority compared to GE13’s 11,569-majority, fuelling rumours that he had lost the confidence of his people on the ground.

The source agreed said that the vast percentage of votes in Musa’s support in Sungai Sibuga have been moved to Sungai Manila, whereas two relatively large voting districts that mostly voted for Warisan remain in Sungai Sibuga.

But Musa also faces challenges from within the party after a fallout following a failed coup of the state government on July 29 and is said to have been with some 13 divisions who openly objected to Bung’s appointment as BN election director for the polls.

Yesterday, Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that they were “building a bridge” with Musa following political differences and were confident of mending it.

Umno and Barisan Nasional is scheduled to announce their candidates for the coming polls tomorrow morning.

Ahmad Zahid said they have completed 95 per cent of seat negotiations.