IC row: Will native parties quit BN?

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On Apr 5, 2013

(FMT) – It is pointless for native parties in the Sabah BN coalition to continue with their blind allegiance when it is now obvious that the federal government ‘does not take them seriously’.

Two serious developments have cropped up in Sabah which got the Barisan Nasional native partners all riled up.

One is the federal government’s rejection of the “united” demand of the BN partners to re-issue fresh MyKads to bona fide Sabahans.

The other is the incriminating revelations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the issuing of MyKads to the illegal immigrants.

Will these two events be reason enough to compel the BN partners to leave the coalition?

Sabah State Reform Party (STAR) hopes these disturbing developments will be enough to lead the parties to collaborate with genuine stakeholders committed to protecting the rights of Sabahans.

With general election weeks away, STAR desperately needs to consolidate with other local parties and wrest the state administration from BN control.

Straddled between giants – BN and Pakatan Rakyat – STAR and Sabah Progressive Peoples Party (SAPP) are the “bigger boys” among the locals.

Both are championing local agendas: STAR has its Borneo Agenda and SAPP has Sabah for Sabahans.

STAR and SAPP are backing PBS, Upko and PBRS in their collective call for the federal government to revoke and re-issue MyKads to genuine Sabahans.

STAR said de facto law minister Nazri Aziz’s dismissal of a “sound proposal” was telling.

Nazri claimed that there were “legal implications” and that the process to re-issue fresh MyKads was “difficult”.

But Sabahans who have been closely following the testimonies of witnesses at the RCI in January into the issuance of MyKads to illegal immigrants in the 1990s in a citizenship-for-votes scam are not buying the tall tale.

Nazri’s dismissive response to Upko president Bernard Dompok’s willingness to surrender his own MyKad merely confirmed suspicions about the direction the RCI was taking and the federal government’s intentions.