John Ghani may contest and win Kuala Penyu
as published HERE Free Malaysia Today

The fast-changing political scenario in Sabah has rattled the once outwardly steady Umno-led Barisan Nasional coalition government of Musa Aman.

With the dust yet to settle from the exit of MPs Wilfred Bumburing (Tuaran) and Lajim Ukin (Beaufort) from the ruling coalition, Sabah Umno is making overtures to bring back into its fold former rebels who have switched sides.

Among them is former Kuala Penyu independent state assembly representative John Ghani.

It was bad news for Sabah’s now dominant political party when the popular Kadazandusun politician was forced to quit Umno after he contested as an independent against a BN candidate in the 2004 election and won convincingly.

Ghani showed that voters in Kuala Penyu, which together with Klias is part of the Beaufort parliamentary constituency, were not automatic Umno or BN supporters as had been assumed.

The defeated BN candidate, senior Upko leader Wences Angang, was no lightweight candidate himself. He was a deputy chief minister, and his defeat shamed Musa, Umno and the coalition who then had Lajim, one of the most influential politicians in the district, on their side.

As it now pans out, Ghani, a former senator, had shown himself to be a counter-balance to Lajim’s well-known influence in the district.

Since Lajim’s squabble with Musa and his divide-and-rule state policies, the expulsion of the former Kuala Penyu assemblyman has come back to haunt the party.

Both Ghani and Lajim have thrown their lot in with Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Rakyat coalition with the former in PKR and the Beaufort MP now leading Pakatan Perubahan Sabah (PPS), an opposition friendly political platform.

That’s bad news for Chief Minister Musa who has been busy trying to outflank potential challengers from within his party.

Ghani’s ‘powerful’ in Kuala Penyu
Early indications are that the internal manoeuvring within Umno, while strengthening Musa’s hold on power, has further weakened the party’s tenuous hold on various constituencies in Sabah and Kuala Penyu is among them.

Incumbent assemblyman John Teo of the United Pasok Momogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (Upko) is already facing a revolt from within his own party with Anggang keen to be nominated to defend the seat.

Ghani, who was narrowly defeated in the 2008 election after again standing as an independent is now with PKR and can count on the active support of Lajim and the tacit support of Angang if the latter is not selected to defend the seat by the BN hierarchy.

As things stand, BN’s chances of retaining the seat are slim and Musa knows this. Umno insiders say the party leader is now making quiet overtures to lure Ghani back into Umno.

The ruling coalition is mindful of the shock result in 2004 when Ghani polled 5,157 votes to Angang’s 3,139 votes. Guandee Kohoi of Setia and independent Saman Ahmad lost their election deposit when they only managed to get 308 and 633 votes, respectively.

Ghani, a Kadazandusun Christian, lost the seat in the 2008 election when he polled 4,159 votes, just 257 votes less than the 4,419 votes garnered by Upko’s Teo while Guandee who contested on a PKR ticket polled 589 votes in the three-corner contest.

Guandee has since left PKR and is now secretary-general of the State Reform Party (STAR), an opposition party headed by maverick Sabah politician Jeffrey Kitingan.

With Angang doing little to hide his friendly ties with Lajim as the BN leadership sorts out its candidates, Lajim has been busy touring his constituency and other areas to drum up support for Pakatan with Ghani.

Others within Upko lobbying for the seat are Linda Antoni, Munih Epin and Lokman Sunggim but a voter in Kuala Penyu said whoever the BN picked would face a difficult fight against Ghani if he was the opposition candidate.

It was true Upko wanted to pull out from the Government

‘Upko debated ditching BN’

By Joseph Bingkasan of Free Malaysia Today

|                       

Former Upko deputy president Wilfred Bumburing revealed details of secret meetings held with party president Bernard Dompok over Upko's status in BN.

 

 

KOTA KINABALU: Senior leaders of United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (Upko) met early this year to discuss pulling out from Barisan Nasional, a former top party leader said today.

Wilfred Mojilip Bumburing, the party’s former deputy president who resigned recently, disclosed that party leaders discussed the possibility of consenting to the `silent’ wishes of the party’s grassroots members for Upko to leave the ruling coalition government.

Bumburing, who resigned from Upko and as BN head for Tuaran on July 29 and now heads the opposition-friendly Angkatan Perubahan Sabah (APS), said he had met with Upko president Bernard Dompok at least eight times to discuss the matter.

The Tuaran MP revealed the secret meetings to clear up allegations by certain BN leaders especially those from Upko that he quit the party because he was not going to be fielded to defend his seat in the coming general elections was not true.

“There is no truth in these allegations. In fact prior to July 29, I and a few other Upko leaders officially declared our decision to leave BN,” he said.

He said Dompok, a Minister in Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s federal cabinet, was well aware of the widespread dissatisfaction in the party over its position as a prop for the Umno-led coalition government.

“On at least on three of the (eight) occasions, Bernard (Dompok) insisted I stay put in Upko and personally asked me to stand and defend the Tuaran parliamentary seat for BN,” Bumburing said in a statement posted in APS’s facebook page.

“However, by then I have already made the decision to leave Upko and BN,” he pointed out, adding that another allegation making the rounds that he quit because he lost the divisional chairman post in the election of Upko Tuaran divisional committee members was also BN slander.

He disclosed that prior to the divisional meeting in 2011, he was told by the nomination committee that he had won the chairman’s post uncontested but he rejected the nomination and asked the committee to conduct another nomination exercise.

He said he also refused to be nominated as BN candidate for Tuaran constituency.

“The whole issue of me and my colleagues in quitting BN is the failure by the BN federal government to resolve the issues of illegal immigrants and the extraordinary population increase in Sabah over the last two decades,” he said.

No respect for Sabah

But Bumburing, a former deputy chief minister, said the disagreement with the BN federal and state government went beyond that of just the issue of illegal immigrants.

Apart from faulting the BN government for ignoring native customary rights over land with thousands of natives displaced by or trapped in forest reserves that have been placed under the Forest Management Units (FMU) which were threatening their very livelihood, he said the BN government had clearly shown itself to be biased.

The failure of the state government to fairly distribute welfare aid to all deserving such assistance clearly demonstrated this, he said.

Adding to the grievances felt by Sabahans, he said, was the fact that BN leaders at federal level had little respect for the guarantees made in the Malaysia Agreement of 1963 when Sabah joined in the formation of Malaysia.

Guarantees that should have protected the rights of the natives of Sabah had almost vanished, he said, adding that while natives in the interior of Sabah were hard pressed to get birth certificates and obtain identity cards for their children, illegal immigrants were easily obtaining citizenship documents.

Ex-Sabah BN MPs in Pakatan panel

By Joseph Bingkasan of Free Malaysia Today

| October 31, 2012

          

According to a former Upko senator, current party leaders were 'trapped' by PM Najib Tun Razak's announcement of an RCI which is unlikely to convene before the polls.

 

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah MPs Wilfred Bumburing and Lajim Ukin – the respective leaders of new opposition groupings Angkatan Perubahan Sabah (APS) and Pakatan Pertubuhan Angkatan Sabah (PPS) – are now members of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) national council.

APS is led by Tuaran MP and former-deputy president of United Pasok Momogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (Upko) Bumburing while PPS is headed by Beaufort MP Lajim who is a former Umno supreme council member.

Both the MPs had on July 29 quit all posts that came with their positions as BN coalition members and pledged support to former prime deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim who now leads Pakatan.

However, both Bumburing and Lajim have yet to join any of the opposition coalition component parties.

Bumburing’s former boss in Upko, Bernard Dompok, was quick to paint the two former senior BN leaders ‘partyless’ status as indecisive, saying that they displayed the lack of confidence in Pakatan’s political struggle.

Dompok, the Plantations Industries and Commodities Minister, who is fighting his own battle to remain relevant in the ruling coalition, also questioned the need for Bumburing and Lajim to establish APS and PPS as their political platforms.

Dompok likened the Anwar-led opposition “as a duck in the water where on the surface the bird looked calm but underwater it was paddling hard.”

However, APS deputy president Maijol Mahap, an Upko vice-president until he resigned in August this year to team up with Bumburing, has hit back at Dompok.

“It is not for anyone to say whether or not Bumburing has any confidence in any of the political parties that make up Pakatan Rakyat. (Joining a political party) is not his priority,” said the former senator who lost his position after he quit the BN.

Upko has already given the senator post to its deputy secretary-general Lucas Umbol whose nomination was unanimously passed by the Sabah Legislative Assembly last week.

‘Pakatan made up of equal partners’

Mahap disclosed that after going through a series of discussions with several Pakatan party leaders including Anwar, it was agreed that Bumburing and Lajim through APS and PPS, assist the opposition coalition in their quest to topple the BN government and wrest control of Putrajaya.

“In relation to this understanding, leaders from APS and PPS have been appointed as members of Pakatan National Council,” he said.

“Unlike BN where Umno is the dominant force and all the other parties have to follow the dictates of Umno, Pakata) is made of equal partners where no single party dominates the other members of the coalition,” he said.

The former senator also backed Bumburing’s stunning revelation that Upko leaders had discussed pulling the party out of the BN and joining Pakatan.

“In fact before July 29, there were suggestion coming from several Upko leaders wanting Bumburing and his group to postpone their intended date to quit BN-Upko.”

According to Mahap, the leaders eventually agreed to let Bumburing go first while Upko leaders sort out some technicalities.

“However all these notions suddenly changed when Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak promised to announce the formation of RCI,” he added.

Mahap pointed out that currently Upko leaders are in a quandry and find themselves “trapped” by the announcement as until today the members of the RCI have yet to sit while “the terms of reference unveiled is nothing but a tool to try to appease the people”.

Upko leaders, he said, are aware that Sabah’s broken immigration system has posed a huge problem for the state and the country with no solution in sight and questions are now being asked about how tough or tender the federal administration will be towards the million or so immigrants already in the state.

“What will Upko do or say should the RCI fail to complete its reports during the stipulated time given to it and/or in the midst of it Najib dissolves Parliament and calls for elections?

“Perhaps the RCI might not even be able to sit for their first meeting before the general election is called,” he said, adding that Upko leaders would find it tough to go down and convince locals to defend the failure of the Umno-BN government in solving the problem.