Did Pairin ask for Nurul’s ban?
Tongues are wagging in Sabah that PBS, which had lost six seats to Pakatan Rakyat in the May 5 polls, did not want Nurul Izzah Anwar usurping them with her presence at Kaamaatan celebrations.
Luke Rintod, FMT
KOTA KINABALU: The use of Kaamatan or Harvest Festival celebration last week as a political football is becoming more and more obvious and less and less defensible.
The ban on Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, who is also a PKR vice-president, from entering Sabah has now been lifted, according to Sabah police commissioner Hamza Taib.
However, no reason was given for banning Nurul from entering Sabah and then lifting it.
Questions are now being raised if Huguan Siou Joseph Pairin Kitingan, the PBS president who is a Deputy Chief Minister of Sabah, had a hand in the decision by Chief Minister Musa Aman to bar the MP from entering Sabah on the first day of the climax of the Kaamatan celebrations.
The question has become pertinent after the PBS information chief Johnny Mositun came out to explain that the bar order was only for one day, to disallow Nurul from attending the state-level Tadau Kaamatan or Harvest Festival hed on May 30-31.
Mositun, in saying that PBS fully supported the order, explained: “I believe this is not a total ban, it was for only that day because of the threat to the state’s security”.
But Mositun’s explanation has instead raised speculations that it was PBS who requested the barring for the young MP, who is the daughter of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim who is now leading the opposition.
In the May 5 general election, PBS lost half (six) of its assemblymen to PKR and DAP and it explains how the party came to view Nurul as a threat.
The six seats PBS lost are: Matunggung, Kadamaian, Tamparuli, Inanam, Api-Api and Sri Tanjung. It nearly lost its Keningau and Kota Marudu parliamentary seats too which they won by default after a split in the opposition votes.
Penampang MP Darrel Leiking had invited Nurul to attend the Kaamatan celebration at the iconic Hongkod Koisaan where Pairin happened to be at the same time and her attendance would have detracted from his.
