KUALA LUMPUR: Parti Warisan president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal has claimed that three of its former assemblymen were allegedly offered money to exit the party.
Its president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal said that he was in Mecca performing his umrah pilgrimage when he received news that three of his party's assemblymen were "bought" by certain parties, but he did not reveal who were behind it.
"That is why, I urged and proposed to relevant authorities to immediately implement an anti-party hopping law in Sabah to ensure that such incidents would not happen again in future," he said while debating the Royal Address in parliament on Wednesday (Feb 15).
On Feb 6, three of the party's assemblymen, including the party's Wanita chief announced they are quitting to be independents who are friendly to Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor.
Mohd Shafie also claimed that he had video evidence that three assemblymen were offered money as an inducement and asked the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to investigate it.
Lo Su Fui (GRS-Tawau) later stood up to ask Shafie to immediately provide the evidence to back up his claims.
"The three assemblymen became independent and you must show the evidence or else I want you to take back these serious allegations against the Sabah chief minister," he said.
To this, Shafie said that he will personally forward the video evidence to Lo.
Lo then said that there is no point to make such serious allegations without having any proof to back it up.
"Please bring it all to court and don't make slander here," he said.
The trio's decision to leave the party comes a month after Warisan, led by Shafie, together with Sabah Barisan Nasional and Parti KDM attempted to topple Hajiji's government.
The trio's move will give Hajiji's government a more comfortable 47 seats majority in the 79-member assembly after the attempted political coup failed.
Hajiji had survived the Jan 6 coup with the support of seven Sabah Pakatan Harapan assemblymen and five Sabah Barisan-Umno (including one aligned to Umno) to hold on to his 27-month old government.
With the latest development, the hovering threat of Barisan-Warisan-KDM attempting to again topple Hajiji's government is expected to fizzle out.
