Bersatu’s decision took me by surprise – Liew
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah PKR chief Datuk Christina Liew was taken by surprise with Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia’s (Bersatu) decision to come to Sabah.
The decision was announced by the party’s chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad a few days ago.
“I was caught by surprise because all this while I thought there was an agreement between the Prime Minister and our Chief Minister. The fact that they (PBBM) did not contest here during the 14th general election confirmed to me that they were going to work together with Warisan and not to come here and Sabah will be taken care of by Warisan together with PKR and DAP.
“Suddenly they are now coming in here and I also heard that many of the former Sabah Umno YBs will be joining this party... this caught me by surprise. I however do not want to comment further because the dealing was between the Chief Minister and the Prime Minister,” said Liew.
The Deputy Chief Minister said this when met at the World Pangolin Day celebration here on Saturday night.
Liew also expressed surprise at Tun Mahathir’s reasoning for expanding PBBM to Sabah which is to strengthen the Warisan-led government.
The Warisan-led government together with PKR, DAP and UPKO is doing well and the state is heading towards good prosperity and a lot of financial development, the Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister stressed.
“To me the state government, under Datuk Seri Shafie’s leadership is doing very well. There is no question about it and suddenly they are saying that we are not doing well and they need to come to assist... to strengthen.
“That surprised me because what we have now, the Warisanled state government together with PKR, DAP and Upko, we are doing very well. You cannot deny that the state government is doing well. I would say the majority of Sabahans support Shafie’s leadership,” she said.
On Friday, Dr Mahathir stated that Bersatu had agreed to establish its branch in Sabah to enable former Sabah Umno members to join the party.
He said the decision was made after Umno members who left the party refused to join Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan) which is a member of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition.