LDP: Merotai seat return a non-issue

KOTA KINABALU: Kalabakan Umno chief Datuk Seri Abdul Ghapur Salleh is not talking sense when asking for the Merotai seat to be contested by his party, according to Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Youth chief Tsang Hieng Yee.

Tsang said Ghapur had made a similar call before the 13th general election giving the same absurd reason that it was the wish of the majority of the people in Merotai and had warned the Barisan Nasional leadership that BN might lose the seat should his call go unheeded.

He said the decision by the BN leadership to continue to contest Merotai through a LDP candidate in the 13th general election proved it was wise to reject Ghapur’s call when Datuk Pang Yuk Ming won with a bigger majority.

“That proved that LDP is well accepted by the people of Merotai and all the allegations made by Ghapur are untrue.

“It is very important to recapitulate that Merotai was a new seat created in the previous constituency re-delineation exercise which LDP was entrusted to contest since the general election in year 2004. Hence, there is no such issue of ‘returning’ the seat to any other component parties because the seat never belonged to any other component parties in the first place. The said call by Ghapur is definitely misconceived,” added Tsang.

As a veteran leader in the state, he said it was very unbecoming of Ghapur to release any statement recklessly like a loose cannon.

“Ghapur is therefore strongly urged not to make the same or any similar call again at any time in the future for the sake of unity of BN,” he said.

Ghapur, who is also Kalabakan member of parliament, said the seat should be returned to Umno as about 75 percent of the population in the area are Malays and Bumiputeras.

“Many residents and branch heads who met me said they no longer want to be represented by a leader who is not from Umno in the forthcoming elections,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Therefore, we hope that the leadership of Umno and Barisan Nasional and State will fulfill their request because if not, BN will lose Merotai in the elections,” he said.

Ghapur also stressed that Kalabakan Umno would not work hard to help the BN win the seat if the candidate was not from Umno.