KOTA KINABALU, Feb 26 — Sabah Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia deputy president Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun today said Sebatik assemblyman Hassan A Gani Pg Amir who left Parti Warisan Sabah to support the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah government did so at his own discretion.
He said Hassan is free to choose his political path and that he had no issue or reaction to it.
“As far as I’m concerned, he is free to choose his political future. I’m sure he has his reasons for leaving and I don’t want to judge others and their political direction — that’s entirely at their discretion. I wish him luck,” said Masidi when asked to comment on Hassan’s announcement.
Sabah’s GRS is formed by eight parties from Perikatan Nasional, Barisan Nasional and Parti Bersatu Sabah.
When asked whether he was expecting others to follow suit, Masidi said anything could happen and it was not worth speculating.
“I cannot speculate if there will be others, politics is an unusual game, we really don’t know what will happen next,” he said.
Yesterday, Hassan told Bernama that he was leaving Warisan because the party was more interested in politicking than serving the people.
Meanwhile, when asked to comment on Umno supreme council member Datuk Mohd Puad Zarkashi’s comment that Umno was going to leave the Perikatan Nasional coalition following betrayal from Bersatu during the Sabah elections, Masidi said that it was purely conjecture.
“I assume that’s his personal opinion and not the party’s official stand, as I have not heard of the party’s stand.
“At this point in time, it is his opinion and he is free to do so. Anyone can give their opinion. But whether happens or not is entirely another issue,” he said.
The Malaysian Insight earlier reported Puad as saying it was only a matter of time before Umno left PN as most of the divisions had agreed to it already, but have yet to make it official due to the postponement of the Umno general assembly in March.
Puad said that Umno felt betrayed by PPBM for several reasons, including when the latter sponsored independent candidates in Umno’s contested seats to sabotage its chances of winning during the Sabah state elections in September last year.
He said the party would leave Bersatu and work with other parties like Pas and those in Sarawak and Sabah.
