SABAH Chief Minister Shafie Apdal has applied to strike out the lawsuit by former chief minister Musa Aman against him, on grounds that the latter had no basis to challenge his appointment as to the post on May 12.

Shafie said the suit by Musa was “scandalous, frivolous and vexatious” and an abuse of the court process.

Shafie was named as the second defendant by Musa in his May 17 suit against the Yang di-Pertua Negeri Juhar Mahiruddin.

Shafie’s application was filed on Monday through his lawyers Messrs Lind Willie Wong & Chin.

In his affidavit, the Parti Warisan Sabah president said that he is the rightful “Chief Minister of Sabah” as his party and its partners, PKR, DAP and Upko, clearly had the majority in the 60-member state assembly. The Warisan-Pakatan Harapan coalition had 35 assemblymen against Sabah Barisan Nasional (BN) and Sabah Star’s 25 assemblymen.

Shafie said that he was duly sworn in by the head of state under Article 6(3) of the Sabah Constitution that allows the governor to appoint the chief minister based on his judgement that such a person was likely to command the majority.

“The Yang di-Pertua had also acted in accordance to Article 7 (1) of the State Constitution as Musa, who was sworn in May 10, had already lost his majority in the assembly,” he said in a statement, today.

Shafie contended that in line with the spirit of the same article, Musa did not seek for the dissolution of the legislative assembly to pave way for a fresh election, and by right, Musa should have resigned, along with his appointed cabinet.

“The issue was based on the case authority of Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin (of PAS) against Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir (Barisan) in the Perak case in which the courts ruled that Nizar had been deemed to have resigned and vacated his office of the menteri besar even without submitting his resignation,” he said.

In his affidavit, Shafie also raised the question of whether the swearing-in of Musa on May 10 was done under duress in view of the police report made by the Juhar against Musa for criminal intimidation.

“Several Upko assemblymen had also claimed that they were kept against their will at the Chief Minister’s official residence Seri Gaya and were allegedly forced to make media statements in support of Musa,” he said.

To date, Shafie has not been served with a summons from the plaintiff as Musa has been missing from Sabah since May 14.

Sabah Police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission are also looking for the Sabah BN chairman who was last seen boarding a flight from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Lumpur.

He was supposed to have his statement taken by the police over the alleged criminal intimidation charges and questioned by graft-busters over an alleged RM20 million assemblymen buyout claim.

A video purportedly of Musa at a train station in London went viral recently. – June 5, 2018