Shafie denies being in touch with Najib

KOTA KINABALU: Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal denied any allegation of being in touch with Barisan Nasional chairman Datuk Seri Najib Razak amid the late announcement of official results for state and parliament seats contested in Sabah.

There were legitimate concerns that back door deals were possibly negotiated between Najib and the Warisan leader to help BN gain necessary advantage to remain in parliament. But in his address to the media at 11.30pm, Shafie denied being in touch with Najib.

“That’s a silly question. Well he doesn’t know my number anyway,” Shafie said.

At the time of his statement, Shafie seemed in the dark on the election results involving Warisan candidates.

Sabahans were kept on the edge of their seats as result announcements were unusually late, causing distress for many who pledged support for the opposition leader and his camp.

As voters turned up at polling centres yesterday, plenty of irregularities were observed leading many to believe that the election commission was incompetent and that the process was possibly rigged to give BN the advantage.

The GE14 is regarded the big daddy of elections and Shafie is set to lead Warisan to victory.

However, there were legitimate concerns that Warisan could give up parliament seats in a deal with BN that could result in a trade off where Shafie would be gain control of the state as chief minister.

But ideally, such trade off would be unnecessary if Warisan and Pakatan Harapan registered resounding victories.