Warisan should focus on Umno strongholds – Jimmy

KOTA KINABALU: Parti Warisan Sabah’s role and focus should be targeting Umno strongholds like Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), said Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sabah advisor Jimmy Wong.

Wong said Warisan should work as a team instead of a single-party dominance in order to topple Barisan Nasional (BN) in Sabah.

The Kota Kinabalu member of parliament said it would be impossible for Warisan to win the election by fighting alone.

He said Warisan should return to the negotiation table and talk about seat distribution with a clean hand and sincerity.

“I hope all the opposition parties can come together and talk about how to allocate seats like (opposition in) the peninsula and finalize it well before the election,” he said at a press conference here yesterday.

Wong pointed out that the role Warisan should play was very clear.

“Your (Warisan) main role is (to target) Umno strongholds like (Tun Dr) Mahathir (Mohamad) leading the charge on Umno strongholds in Felda. “Your role is exactly the same. “If you play that role effectively, we will topple BN in no time,” he said.

If Warisan sincerely wanted to topple BN, Wong said the opposition party should work as a team based on the spirit of Pakatan Harapan (PH) that no single party should be dominant. He said the opposition parties had finally consolidated in the peninsula under PH whereby voters had a clear choice of either PH or BN. He said the PH’s seat distribution showed that no party was dominating over other parties, with PPBM contesting 52 seats, followed by Parti Keadilan Rakyat (51), DAP (35) and Parti Amanah Negara (27).

However, Wong said the opposition parties in Sabah were unable to consolidate.

“I want the people to understand that it is not because PH does not want to work with the opposition parties in Sabah, especially the local-based parties.”

But now there is hope seeing that Parti Cinta Sabah (PCS) led by Datuk Seri Wilfred Bumburing has decided to leave United Sabah Alliance (USA) and work with PH as the latter did not wish to be seen as BN friendly, Wong said.

He said voters should reject opposition parties which did not want to work with PH as their refusal to work with the national opposition coalition would benefit BN.

“Divided we fall, united we stand and we win,” Wong said.

Also present at the press conference were DAP Sabah treasurer Ronnie Loh Ee Eng and publicity secretary Ginger Phoong.

Warisan president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal had said that the party would be contesting in areas where it was confident of winning.

He also said the party would not be joining any opposition coalition when asked whether Warisan would be working with PH in the 14th general election (GE14).

Shafie said he had not met with any representatives from nationalbased opposition parties on the matter of working together in GE14.