KOTA KINABALU: Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan is keen to see the anti-hopping law adopted in Sabah.
The Sabah STAR president said that the anti-hopping Bill passed in Parliament should be adopted by Sabah as it was a good law that was long overdue.
Kitingan, who is Deputy Chief Minister, said that his party would support the amendments to the state constitution to allow for an anti-defection law to come in place in Sabah.
The newly enacted law did not apply to Sabah which needed its own enactment to stop assemblymen from crossing floors after they were elected on a political party ticket.
"It’s a good law, we will support it. We supported it at the federal level so we will support it here in Sabah," he told reporters when asked if the party was ready to support the anti-hopping law for the state.
"In fact, it is a long awaited law," said Kitingan, who is Keningau MP and Tambunan assemblyman.
Kitingan, is among one of Sabah's most controversial politicians, when it came to party crossovers during his involvement in politics since 1994.
Kitingan was first elected as Bingkor assemblyman in 1994 on a Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) ticket but left the party shortly after the 1994 state elections to join newly formed Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) only to leave it hours later to join the now defunct Parti Akar.
In the following years, Kitingan quit Akar (also after a leadership tussle with then president Tan Sri Pandikar Amin) to return to PBS
(led by his brother Tan Sri Joseph Pairin). He quit PBS for a second time and rejoined PBRS in early 2000.
A subsequent leadership tussle with PBRS president Tan Sri Joseph Kurup, saw him quit PBRS again. He flirted with joining Parti Upko and Umno.
He was allegedly even accepted as a member of Umno but the party later said it was a clerical mistake and removed him as a member.
Kitingan then went on to join PKR but had a fallout with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, before joining Sarawak-based Parti STAR and led the Sabah chapter between 2011-2016.
Eventually in 2016, Kitingan managed to register Parti Solidariti Tanah Air Ku (Sabah STAR) which he has led and became a member of Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) as well as a member of Perikatan Nasional.
The GRS-Barisan Nasional led state government said that they would adopt the anti-hopping law but have yet to say when it will hold an assembly sitting to enact the law under its constitution.
