KOTA KINABALU: The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) wants a reasonable and fair deal after it lost its state cabinet posts when its former vice president Datuk Peter Pang En Yin joined Gerakan, a peninsula-based Barisan Nasional party.
Its president Datuk V.K. Liew also insisted that the Karamunting state seat held by Pang rightly belongs to the LDP.
While acknowledging Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman’s prerogative to retain Pang in the State Cabinet, Liew said however that the views of all the Sabah Barisan Nasional (BN) component members should be taken into account on decisions made for the state.
Pang, who joined Sabah Gerakan last week some six months after quitting LDP, was immediately dropped as the Deputy Chief Minister representing the Chinese community but was retained as Youth and Sports Minister, a portfolio previously held by the LDP.
Pang was quoted as saying by the media that he was looking forward to defending the Karamunting seat in the coming general elections.
Liew, who is the Sandakan MP, said it goes without saying that the appointment of a cabinet minister is the prerogative of the Chief Minister of the day.
“However, in exercising such discretionary power, it is an established norm that it is done judiciously having taken into consideration the interest of all component parties in BN,” he said yesterday in his first official comment on Pang’s position in the State Cabinet.
Liew cited the precedent set in the case of Senator Datuk T.M urugiah, who was sacked by PPP in 2009 but retained in the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s Cabinet.
“That demonstrated the prerogative power of the Prime Minister. Senator Murugiah remained in Najib’s administration even after he was sacked by PPP in 2009 until he joined MIC a year later.”
In 2010, said Liew, the Prime Minister continued to retain Murugiah as a Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department but PPP was “compensated” with a Senator, a deputy minister and an ambassador post.
In that case, Datuk Meglin D’Cruz was made the Senator as well as the Deputy Minister of Information, Communication, Culture and Heritage.
Another PPP member was made an Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, he said, in explaining that it reflected fairness and reasonableness of the Prime Minister in handling the matter.
In relation to the issue here, Liew, who is also Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, said his party is not asking for anything more than fairness and reasonableness in the matter.
“LDP has contributed four seats to Barisan in the last General Election in 2008 by winning all the four seats contested in Tg Kapor (Kudat), Merotai (Tawau), Karamunting (Sandakan) and Sandakan (Parliamentary).
“In that respect, we have contributed 100 % to the victory of BN,” he said, adding that it was undeniable fact that LDP has contributed positively to the political development in Sabah since its formation in 1989.
With regard to the Karamunting state seat, Liew said all this while the seat had been allocated to the LDP and requires no further elaboration from him.
“From the beginning when the constituency was formed in 1999, Karamunting was allocated to LDP to contest and it will continue to be so.”