DR ROLAND Chia, one of the four contenders in the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Penampang election last Sunday, was said to have lodged a police report on Tuesday against one of its members for allegedly assaulting him during the election.
According to a senior PKR Penampang member who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the aggressor is a close aide and representative of another contender, Darell Leiking who is also the winner in the controversial election.
Leiking polled 325 votes to defeat Dr Roland who garnered 199 votes, the third highest among the four contenders. In the second place was Brett Chua who collected 235 votes and in the last place was Innocent Makajil, with 19 votes only.
Besides staging a walk-out with his supporters in protest, Innocent also lodged a police report on the day itself, citing irregularities in the election procedures.
Among the alleged irregularities cited were, no proper dissolution of the previous committee, as there was no passing of the minutes of the previous AGM (Annual General Meeting) and coupled with no Secretary nor Treasurer reports were presented, the AGM was chaired by someone who has no locus standi (Datuk James Ghani, who is PKR Papar chief).
The dubious AGM cum election was held at the compound of a member’s residence in Kg Tuavon, in Kasigui here.
“Dr Roland was pushed around by several staunch supporters of Darell. At one point of time, he was held by his throat by one of his assailants who also punched him (Dr Roland) on his chest. It is believed that he (Dr Roland) suffered soft tissue injury on the chest with a possibility of a fracture rib. The assault was clearly an attempt by Darell’s camp in intimidating Dr Roland and his supporters from participating and voting in the divisional election,” said the senior PKR Penampang member.
He also claimed that the said election turned not only hostile but also racist when some of Darell’s supporters hurled racist remarks against Dr Roland’s supporters who are predominantly Chinese. Many of Dr Roland supporters were said to have felt threatened by the rowdiness of Darell’s supporters and decided to go home without casting their votes.
“The local Penampang community frowned on this dirty tactics employed by Darell’s camp in the attempt to win the divisional election at all cost. Many party supporters are now condemning this act of intimidation, and are urging the PKR top leadership to nullify the election result because it was not conducted in a fair manner.
”If such a dubious character like Darell is to be made a PKR leader and to stand in the next general election, I’m afraid the outcome would be disastrous,” he said.
“We sincerely hope that the Party Central leaderships would seriously look into this and to take necessary and effective measures to address the issue, in order to restore confidence among the members. Otherwise, it would set the Party on a ‘self-destruct’ mode,” he warned.
Dr Roland could not be reached for comment at Press time.
Meanwhile, when contacted later, Darell while admitting of knowing the aggressor, categorically denied he had anything to do with the said incident.
“They can say what they want but I have got nothing to do with it (the alleged assault),” he said.
All the 24 Sabah PKR divisions except for Kimanis completed their elections in a staggered and chaotic manner with the Penampang division being the last one to hold theirs on last Sunday.
It was also reliably learnt that thus far four divisions namely Kota Kinabalu, Beaufort, Tenom and Penampang had either lodged official complaint with the Party Headquarters, or the police and the Registrar of Society (RoS), over alleged irregularities in the conduct of the divisional elections.
Meanwhile, PKR Vice President Azmin Ali was said to have secured a total of 16 nominations from Sabah for the Deputy President post, while his contender Datuk Zaid Ibrahim with 7 nominations.
The 15 divisions who supported Azmin were, Kudat, Kota Marudu, Ranau, Tuaran, Papar, Sipitang, Pensiangan, Tenom, Sandakan, Libaran, Batu Sapi, Tawau, Silam, Semporna and Kalabakan. The seven who nominated Zaid were, Kota Kinabalu, Beaufort, Keningau, Kota Belud, Beluran, Putatan, and Sepangar. There was also one nomination from Kinabatangan for PRK Vice President, Mutafa Kamil Ayub.
Both Kimanis and Penampang divisions failed to nominate due to some unresolved issues.
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