By : LUKE RINTOD
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Umno
has brushed off claims of a shake-up in the party and that its strongman Musa
Aman could well be on the way out ahead of the crucial general election.
Senior Sabah Umno leader,
Masidi Manjun, quickly dismissed the news report in FMT as mere rumour,
claiming even Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was impressed by Musa’s performance,
both as Umno Head and Chief Minister.
“Musa is doing an excellent
job leading the party and the state government and the prime minister himself
has complimented Musa’s leadership,” he said recently.
“Sabah Umno and Barisan
Nasional (BN) are fully behind Musa to continue leading the state,” he insisted
when reporters asked him on the FMT article that the chief minister was marking
time and could be replaced soon.
Local newspapers here
yesterday carried Masidi’s denial prominently but party insiders whom FMT
contacted insisted that many in Sabah Umno do not subscribe to the party line
that Musa is doing an excellent job.
Said one: “If Musa is doing
an excellent job as Masidi claimed, how come leaders like Lajim Ukin and
Wilfred Bumburing had left? Please explain too why the Kadazandusuns and
Chinese and even more Muslims in Sabah are leaving BN?”
According to the report, an
increasingly embattled Umno could well be forced to do a rescue reshuffle in
its 'Fix-Deposit' Sabah’s party hierarchy and state leadership.
The rationale for the
reshuffle getting the go-ahead from Najib is reportedly due to grumbling among
the business community in the state as well as a series of high-profile
defections from Umno as well as other BN parties.
According to well-placed
sources, the shake-up would involve Musa taking leave and either Masidi or
Hajiji Mohd Noor acting as Sabah chief minister until the general election.
Serious
repercussions
However, talk of a shake-up
in Sabah Umno is also being seen as a gambit by those close to another Sabah
Umno strongman and Musa rival, Shafie Apdal, the current Semporna MP who is a
trusted man of Najib, to eventually pave the way for him to helm the state.
This is plausible but Umno
insiders are warning of serious repercussions should Najib refuse to
reinvigorate the BN in the state which is reportedly steadily losing the
support of almost all the communities in the state.
They claimed that party’s
interest must be put first and ahead of personal agenda and failure to do so would
result in more defections as the election looms.
“The sooner the PM does
something, the better we are prepared for the election. Public perception is
just as crucial as reality in an election; we cannot afford to carry baggage in
a pivotal election like the coming one,” said an Umno leader who requested
anonymity.
He said Masidi’s statement
was a stock party reply as “there is no way an Umno leader would go ahead and
say yes there is truth in the report on Musa”.
“It is better for the party
to be courageous than limp into an opposition vicious attacks. Insiders like
Lajim and Bumburing could be dishing out damaging information.
“They are already working
with Anwar Ibrahim to bring down the party,” said the Umno leader who claimed
to be among its founding members in Sabah.
Just before leaving Umno,
Lajim hinted that he had informed Najib about the situation in Sabah for the BN
and how in his view it was time to replace Musa as chief minister.
The situation in Sabah,
according to party insiders, is not unlike that across the border, where there
are efforts to replace long-serving Sarawak Chief Minister, Taib Mahmud.
So far, Taib has shown no
sign of leaving the scene before the general election.
No comments:
Post a Comment