DAP Sabah Cracking: Another leader quits

(WikiSabah) – More cracks are appearing in Sabah DAP with its vice chairman Peter Liew Fui Ken joining a string of leaders resigning from the party.

Liew, whose resignation comes just a week after State DAP deputy chairman Fred Fung resigned, said that he was resigning from all his party posts in the state committee as well as a life member of the party.

“I have lost faith and trust over the leadership of DAP and feel very disheartened over the treatment I received from people who are in control of the state committee,” Liew said yesterday.

He said there was something seriously wrong with Sabah DAP where senior party members and loyalists have been resigning despite the party’s best showing in the May 2013 general election where they won three state seats and one parliamentary seat.

Cracks began to appear when Api Api assemblyman Hiew King Cheu quit the party in December last year to become a Barisan-Nasional friendly independent.

DAP and its Pakatan Rakyat partner Sabah PKR have been reeling in a series of defections despite the opposition’s best electoral showing in over a decade where it won 12 of the 60 state seats and three of the 25 parliament seats in Sabah.

Sabah PKR lost two elected assemblyman – Jelani Hamdan (Matunggong) and Jeremy Majalad (Kadamaian) – who became Barisan friendly independents while at least nine PKR division heads also quit the party.

Sabah DAP chairman Jimmy Wong could not be reached for comments on the latest resignation.

Political observers are expecting to see more resignations in view of unhappiness over certain new leaders in the state line-up.

They believe that the older leaders are unhappy with brash leadership styles of certain younger elected members and had not given due respect to older leaders.

“I am not respected all the time as vice chairman and have been taken for granted,” charged Liew.

He said the resignation of veteran party leader Fung earlier this month just went to show that the “ungrateful people in the party” failed to recognise his contribution over the last 20 years to build the party.

Fung together with the Kota Kinabalu DAP women chief Candy Wong together with her committee had quit on Jan 1.