NEWLY sworn-in Sabah Chief Minister Shafie Apdal said the coalition of parties under Parti Warisan Sabah has a comfortable majority and does not need to invoke the state constitution that allows the appointments of nominated members to the state legislature.

Warisan now has 38 state seats, following crossovers by Barisan Nasional (BN) parties. Sabah has 60 state seats.

“We don’t need (to invoke the state constitution) because we have the numbers. If needed we will appoint nominated members who must be professionals,” the Warisan president said in Kota Kinabalu tonight.

The state constitution allows the nomination of not more than six unelected members of the legislature to represent minority groups. This provision has never been used under the BN regime.

The use of this provision has been the a major talking point in Sabah in the stalemate between Shafie and state BN chairman Musa Aman to become chief minister. Musa was sworn in late at night on May 10, when BN had 31 seats against Warisan’s 29.

Shafie was sworn in on Saturday night after being confident of having the majority of Sabah lawmakers behind him.

Musa has refused to step down although his coalition now only has 22 seats after the crossovers to Warisan.

Among those who defected from BN were Sugut assemblyman James Ratib (Umno), Pitas assemblyman Bolkiah Ismail (Umno), Kuala Penyu assemblyman Limus Jury (Upko) and Kuamut assemblyman Masiung Banah (Upko).

Masiung is the youth and sports minister and Bolkiah is the industrial development minister in Musa’s cabinet.

Grassroots party members of Pakatan Harapan (PH), however, are unhappy with the crossovers, calling them unprincipled.

In Pensiangan, a number of party PBRS members demonstrated peacefully to condemn the act. Election watchdog, Bersih Sabah has also condemned the crossovers as a betrayal of voters.

Around 6,000 PKR members also held a protest to stop rival PBRS from joining PH.

Sabah PKR chief Christina Liew also expressed concerns about how the crossovers would be bad for governance as Sabah would not have a strong opposition.

“It will look like we have no more opposition YBs, and become another BN 2.0. For democracy to exist, there needs to be opposition in the state,” she said. – May 13, 2018.