KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Umno’s newly-minted chief Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin is set to spar with his one-time political ally Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal, the Parti Warisan Sabah president.
Amid a mass defection of Umno assemblymen from his Kinabatangan stronghold over the weekend, Bung said he had made it clear to Shafie that he would support what was right and oppose what was wrong.
“I promised him that I will support him if he does good for the people, and I will attack him if he is wrong,” said Bung Mokthar, who took over as Sabah Umno chief on Dec 12 after 18 lawmakers and 21 division leaders from Sabah Umno left the party.
“In politics, everything is possible.
"Today you are an enemy, tomorrow you are good friends,” he told reporters on Wednesday (Jan 30) amid questions as to whether there was any “invitation” for him to join Warisan.
Bung Mokhtar said he had not talked to Shafie since he became Sabah Umno chief and had no plans to join Warisan as he was busy transforming Sabah Umno into a state-based party that would chart its own political course without any interference from peninsular Umno.
He said Umno's national leaders were expected to arrive next week to make a formal announcement on Sabah Umno’s autonomy and added that the state party would hold its convention in August or September this year.
Bung Mokthar also disputed claims that some 3,000 of members had left for Warisan over the weekend. He said at the most only 200 might have left.
Insisting that Kinabatangan was unaffected, he said Sabah Umno was intact with some 585,000 members in 5,885 branches still operating despite the departure of top leaders led by the then-state chief Datuk Seri Mohd Hajiji Noor.
He reiterated that some of the former leaders and member who left were “feeling cheated” as Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) had yet to extend its wings to the state.
“They can come back if they want but as ordinary members,” Bung Mokhtar said, adding that some had talked to him the political quandary they were in after leaving Umno.
Bung also questioned the Warisan-led state government's failure to carry out any new projects and for failing to keep their promises to scrap the multi-billion Tanjung Aru Eco-Development project pushed by the previous Sabah Barisan government.
He claimed that the state government was also faltering with Barisan’s Pan Borneo highway project that was important for Sabahans.
“In Sarawak, the project is moving ahead; in Sabah it seems like nothing is moving,” he said, adding that there were suspicious movements of loaded logging lorries in the famed Maliau Basin area.
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