KOTA KINABALU: Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal says he will look into legal avenues to stop Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) president Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili and other Parti Warisan detractors from using the undocumented immigrant issue as political ammunition.
The Warisan president said the party’s political enemies had too often associated the party as being friendly to "pendatang tanpa izin" (unauthorised or undocumented immigrants) or PTI when it clearly was not.
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“I will look at this from a legal perspective (on how to handle) this situation ... I will sue him (Ongkili) for defamation,” he said after launching Warisan’s election machinery in Sabah's northern Kota Belud constituency on Sunday (Oct 23).
“I don’t want them to use this (PTI issue) as a political tool to break up votes in the country, especially in Sabah.
“Every election, they will always use PTI (against Warisan),” said the former Sabah chief minister.
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Ongkili had, in his speech during a Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) tour of the interior Tenom district on Saturday (Oct 22), said that PBS was not ready to work with Warisan.
He was referring to overtures made by Warisan to PBS over the possibility of the two parties working together for the upcoming polls.
Subsequently, Ongkili allegedly said PBS was not prepared to work with Warisan because most of their grassroots members were PTI.
Shafie advised Ongkili not to make such accusations.
“I only wanted (to work with PBS) as a way to unite the people but it’s fine if they are not agreeable to this.
“But don’t accuse us of having members who are mostly PTIs,” he added.
