Police report over claim that SAPP candidates paid by BN
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Progressive Party’s (SAPP) Luyang candidate Gee Tien Siong has lodged a police report over lies that the party’s candidates have been paid by the Barisan Nasional (BN).
Gee lodged the report at the Karamunsing police station at 5.38pm yesterday just hours after the conversation in his school’s alumni WhatsApp group.
“I was shocked when a former schoolmate asked me if I had received money from (BN chairman) Najib (Razak),” he said after lodging the report.
“When I asked why he said this, my schoolmate posted a screenshot of another WhatsApp conversation in which an individual claimed that all SAPP candidates had been paid off by BN,” Gee said.
“In that conversation, the individual concerned further claimed that the Gabungan Sabah coalition of which SAPP is a component was to split the Kadazandusun Murut votes in this election,” he said.
Gee said it was apparent that the motive of asking him in the open WhatsApp group conversation with 32 members was to smear him and the other SAPP candidates.“If he had no motive and sincerely wanted to know whether I had received any kind of inducement, he would have asked me in a private conversation,” he said.
He said the allegations were reminiscent of the slander SAPP president Datuk Seri Yong Teck Lee faced when contesting the Likas seat in the 2013 polls.
Yong was accused of receiving RM80 million from BN by the then DAP candidate for Likas, Junz Wong, in a Facebook posting.
Junz who won the seat subsequently apologised to Yong in public and retracted his lie.