KOTA KINABALU: Gabungan Sabah chairman Datuk Mohd Noor Mansoor yesterday expressed sadness over the burning of bridges by Parti Warisan Sabah president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal to work with Gabungan Sabah.
“For more than a year, we have been hoping that Parti Warisan will wake up to reality. As a former vice president of Umno, Shafie surely knows that it is no easy task to defeat Umno. The rakyat expect Sabah parties to combine our strengths to beat Umno but in spite of all our efforts and patience with Parti Warisan, it seems that Shafie has made up his mind,” lamented Mohd Noor who has been in the opposition ever since 1985 when Party Berjaya of which he was secretary general, lost to the fledgling Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS).
Prior to that, he was a victim of the cruel Internal Security Act that allowed detention without trial for political prisoners.
“As a senior and speaking with some experience, I hope Shafie will reconsider his stand (not to work with Gabungan Sabah). All of us in Gabungan Sabah have been in opposition politics much longer than Shafie. Shafie should not talk about not trusting Gabungan Sabah leaders because we in Gabungan are tested and have survived the trials and tribulations of struggle for Sabah. Whereas Shafie has always been in the luxury of government power until recently when he was sacked as a minister for being in the wrong Umno camp. Shafie and his team are only learning how to walk as far as opposition politics are concerned,” said Mohd Noor.
“The day before Shafie announced his departure from Umno, he and his close aides personally persuaded me to be with him at his Semporna home for his ‘big day’. Although that was already the eve of Hari Raya, I travelled all the way to Semporna to show our support. We only got home for Raya at dawn. At my age, that was no comfortable trip. After Shafie formed Parti Warisan, he began to lose sight of the big picture. His party gave excuses like needing more time to set up the party, need to get members’ feedback and so on as reasons for delaying a co-operation pact with Gabungan. Openly and directly, Gabungan Sabah has extended our hands of friendship to Parti Warisan. It seems that Parti Warisan has their own agenda,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Harapan Rakyat deputy secretary general Edmund Doudilim also took Shafie to task for saying that he does not trust leaders of Sabah-based opposition parties.
“Shafie’s statement in the media where he was quoted as saying, ‘I don’t trust them, I know the true colours of some of the leaders in the Sabah-based opposition coalition’ is nothing but a manifestation of his personality, sheer arrogance, character and reflects the kind of a leader he is,” claimed Edmund who is of the opinion that Shafie’s arrogance is the highest degree.
“He should act gentlemanly and show good example to his boys instead of teaching them to be arrogant and disrespectful to others. A leader especially one who aspires to be a Chief Minister must learn how to respect others. No wonder he cannot seem to command the respect of his Sabah Umno peers,” he stressed.
Edmund pointed out that Sabah-based opposition leaders or Gabungan Sabah have earned every right to lead and to represent the people through their respective parties and Shafie has no right to mock and belittle them.
He said it is entirely up to the people of Sabah to judge and not Shafie who is relatively untested in Sabah politics.
“Unlike them, Shafie has never been a president of any political party before until he became Warisan president. Throughout his political career he had been with Umno and Umno only after the MP seat he is clinging onto now was handed to him on a platter by his uncle Tun Sakaran Dandai.
“Since, he never went through hard times probably explain his arrogance. Understandbly, his bonding and connections with Umno is very strong until today. Umno is still dear to his heart the reason he never attacks Umno at all. He only attacks (Chief Minister) Tan Sri Musa alone,” he said.
Conversely, Gabungan Sabah’s main objective by working together is to rid Sabah of the Umno BN rule for good. Hence, Shafie’s reasoning not to cooperate with them is a cheap tactical ploy that is most certain to split the votes thus giving advantage yet again to Umno/BN, Edmund claimed.