Upko's five claim they were not consulted on decision to join Warisan

KOTA KINABALU: The elected Upko assemblymen have claimed that they were not consulted on their party's supreme council's decision to join Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan).

Upko vice president Datuk Masiung Banah, who was elected as Kuamut assemblyman, strongly denied that the party's five assemblyman have decided to join Warisan.

“We were informed that the Upko supreme council had a meeting where it was decided to join Warisan. We wish to stress that this matter was never referred to the us, the elected Upko assemblymen,” he said.

The other four Upko assemblymen are Ewon Benedick (Kadamaian), Datuk Limus Jury (Kuala Penyu), Datuk Abidin Madingkir (Paginatan) and Datuk Bobbey Suan (Nabawan).

Masiung said the people have given their mandate and trust to Upko candidates because they were contesting under the Barisan Nasional (BN) ticket, not the Upko-Warisan ticket.

“We might not win in the election if Warisan and Upko had a pact,” he said at the press conference called by Sabah BN chairman Tan Sri Musa Aman, here yesterday.

Musa yesterday announced that two STAR assemblymen, namely, its president Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan (Tambunan) and Robert Tawik @ Nordin (Bingkor) have agreed to form a coalition state government with the 29 elected Sabah Barisan Nasional (BN) assemblymen for a simple majority of 31 seats.

Meanwhile, Ewon said the party's elected assemblymen were not given the opportunity to voice their views nor given time to wait until the swearing-in of the Chief Minister was over before calling for the supreme council meeting.

“I was perplexed as to why the supreme council meeting had to be expedited without waiting for the five of us to be present, and on the meeting with the Warisan president.”

Ewon said, the five of them were informed of the meeting, but their priority was the swearing-in ceremony as BN had reportedly secured a simple majority to form the state government.

“That is more important than the party's supreme council meeting to discuss cooperation with Warisan,” he said.

On his Upko's membership status, Ewon said, he would still be a member of Upko as long as the party consider him as such.

The Upko elected representatives also stressed that they were at Sri Gaya voluntarily since the Wednesday night and yesterday morning to await the time for them to swear-in before the Head of State Tun Juhar Mahiruddin.

Meanwhile, Limus said, it was not right for Upko elected representatives to join Warisan because they contested under the BN ticket, not Upko.

“Hence, we are loyal to the struggles of BN,” he said.

The sentiments were shared by Bobbey and Abidin as well.