KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 13 — Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) will formally inform the Dewan Rakyat Speaker about the four Sabah MPs who recently left the party after the 15th general election, its Youth chief Wan Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal said today.
The four MPs sparked a storm last Saturday when Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor announced that he and other state and federal leaders were leaving Bersatu en masse, raising questions about whether or not the elected representatives would be disqualified due to the new anti-party-hopping law.
“We will write a letter to the Speaker to explain our position regarding the four MPs who used to be Bersatu members, who are now directly members of GRS.
“As far as we know, they were Bersatu members when they contested under GRS,” Wan Fayhsal, who is also Machang MP, said on the Breakfast Grille, a BFM radio talk show this morning.
GRS is the abbreviation of Gabungan Rakyat Sabah, the state ruling coalition that also accepts individuals as direct members even if they are members of another party.
Bersatu is a component party of Perikatan Nasional (PN) and was also a part of GRS, until Hajiji’s announcement.
The “Bersatu Four” refers to four of the six MPs who contested directly on the GRS ticket in the November 19 general election. They are: Papar MP Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali, Batu Sapi MP Khairul Firdaus Akbar Khan, Sipitang MP Datuk Matbali Musah and Ranau MP Datuk Jonathan Yasin.
Armizan and Khairul are both part of the federal government; the former is Sabah and Sarawak affairs minister and the latter is deputy minister of tourism, arts and culture.
The remaining two Sabah MPs are Keningau MP Datuk Seri Jeffrey Kitingan who is from STAR and Tawau MP Lo Su Fui who is from PBS.
Wan Fayhsal PN would leave the matter the legality of the four parliamentary seats held by the “Bersatu Four” to the Dewan Rakyat Speaker to decide if they should be vacated or otherwise.
He said that GRS won big in the 2020 Sabah state election due to PN’s branding and expressed disappointment at Hajiji’s action.
“We are disappointed with Hajiji because he is thinking about himself, retaining his position as the chief minister, that’s what he is trying to do.
“But well, we cannot stop them and they have made their move, but we have to express our disappointment,” he added.
Hajiji announced the group exodus from Bersatu on December 10, saying it was a unanimous decision after considering Malaysia’s current political landscape and taking into consideration the Agong’s advice for the formation of a unity government at the federal level.
Hajiji and the Sabah assemblymen are not disqualified as elected representatives as there is yet to be a state enactment of the anti-party hopping law, which was passed in Parliament and has come into force, affecting federal lawmakers.
But de facto law minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar who had been instrumental in drawing up the anti-party hopping law said the four Sabah MPs need not vacate their seats since he understood they resigned from Bernama before the 15th general election took place on November 19.
