Amanah claims left out from Sabah Pakatan-Warisan pact

(MMO) – While Parti Warisan Sabah and the Sabah branch of Pakatan Harapan (PH) have been triumphantly claiming a “done deal” on seat negotiations, one party seems to have been left out.

Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) Sabah chairman Hamzah Abdullah said yesterday that his party has yet to meet and negotiate with Warisan on how to avoid clashing in multi-corner fights.

“To date…no official meeting between Amanah and Warisan yet. I made several attempts to get in touch with Warisan…but their standard answer — only the President can decide,” said Hamzah when contacted.

Hamzah was noticeably disgruntled when asked about his party’s negotiations with the new Sabahan party headed by former Umno vice president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal.

Hamzah said he was in direct contact with several Warisan leaders and had issued an invitation letter to them, which they have acknowledged but failed to act on.

Within Sabah PH, PKR, DAP and Amanah have agreed to negotiate between themselves before meeting with Warisan to negotiate separately which seats they would contest.

DAP had confirmed they would contest three parliamentary seats, while PKR had said they were “fine tuning” some details of a couple of seats which they could not decide on.

Amanah, which had been allocated two state and two parliamentary seats within PH’s own agreement, was wary of its seat allocation being trimmed even further.

“The other parties had been given more. Their earlier total number of seats which starts from eight…decreased to three and five. But for Amanah, which is only allocated two seats…how could we negotiate?” said Hamzah.

Amanah said without a pact, they would go ahead and contest the Batu Sapi and Kalabakan parliamentary seats, as well as the Bugaya and Merotai state seats.

Hamzah said that Sabah PH chairman Christina Liew should have initiated an open and transparent official pact as early as four months ago.

“Just like the PH pact in Semenanjung. A clear pact that can be conveyed to the rakyat

with direction on how the government will be run after winning the election,” he said.

He also claimed that negotiations between PH and Warisan were not a “done deal”, as the latter was not satisfied with its number of seats.

When contacted, Liew said she was unaware of negotiations between Amanah and Warisan, but said to her understanding, the parties had been in contact.

“I am concerned because we have to work as a team, but my priority is to look after PKR first,” she said, adding that she will call Hamzah.

In the 2013 election, split votes, or votes that were split among the various Opposition parties running against the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN), caused the Opposition parties, especially Pakatan, to lose up to eight state seats and five parliamentary seats.

Opposition parties in Sabah acknowledged the problem and have to some extent, tried to amend the problem. A concept of a “grand opposition alliance” was mooted but to little success.

Sabahan voters can expect up to four-corner fights in several major seats, particularly native non-Muslim seats due to the abundance of Kadazandusun-based parties in the state.

Aside from PHand Warisan, there is also a four-party pact named Gabungan Sabah consisting of Parti Sabah Solidariti Tanah Airku (Star), Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), Parti Harapan Rakyat Sabah and Parti Perpaduan Rakyat Sabah.

Parti Cinta Sabah and Parti Kerjasama Anak Negeri have also recently formed an alliance to work together.