SARAWAK Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg said he will discuss Sri Aman MP Masir Kujat’s defection with his Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) partners.

Masir had yesterday abruptly quit Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), a component party of the state’s ruling GPS coalition, to join independent Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB).

PSB is in the midst of applying to join the four-party ruling GPS coalition.

“Let me talk to my GPS partners first. They are our partners so we might as well look after ourselves first.

“Give me time,” Abang Johari said after opening an education fair in Kuching today.

On whether “poaching” other party leaders was ethical, Abang Johari said he needed to find a solution to “an inherited problem”.

Meanwhile, GPS’ Youth wing condemned PSB’s move to join the ruling coalition, saying it is “not in line with GPS’ core principles of forging unity and cooperation within and between component parties”.

GPS Youth also questioned the presence of two key PSB leaders in the state cabinet.

GPS deputy Youth chief Miro Simuh said, despite the fact that PSB president Wong Soon Koh and his deputy, Jerip Susil, were a full and assistant minister, respectively, in the cabinet of the GPS government, the non-GPS component party’s acceptance of a GPS MP and two former PRS leaders into the party was “an act of mockery and enmity against GPS”.

The two former PRS leaders Simuh was referring to are former PRS deputy president Joseph Entulu and former Batang Ai MP William Nyallau Badak.

Both Entulu and Nyallau were sacked by PRS just days before the May 9 general election last year on grounds they had acted against party interests.

“As a matter of discipline, we cannot condone the fact that there are non-GPS members in the cabinet enjoying all the privileges and resources in the GPS government, while leading a non-GPS political party to recruit members from GPS with a clear intent to disrupt GPS’ stability and solidarity among its component parties,” the Serembu assemblyman, who was representing the wing’s chief, Gerald Rentap Jabu, said in a press conference today.

He said GPS Youth found the situation “weird and strange”.

Short of calling for their expulsion from the state cabinet, Simuh said the GPS Youth was confident the Sarawak chief minister’s wisdom would resolve the issue “for the betterment of Sarawak”.

“While GPS is entrusted by Sarawakians to pursue our state rights and position in so far as the MA63 (Malaysia Agreement 1963) is concerned, simultaneously, we cannot allow any divisive politicking to distract our focus in putting Sarawak first.

“Sarawak needs a strong and dedicated local political alliance to safeguard Sarawak’s rights and interests, not a platform to divide but to unite our struggle,” Simuh said. – March 8, 2019.