TURN.... Is Sabah Deputy
Chief Minister Peter Pang seeing the consequence of his 2010 decision to turn
his back on LDP and its President V.K Liew?
By : FMT STAFF
SANDAKAN: The biggest loser
in the battle between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Sabah Chief
Minister Musa Aman for three years has turned out to be Peter Pang, the
assemblyman for Karamunting.
Pang quit LDP in 2010 to
throw his support behind Musa who came under attack from the Barisan Nasional
coalition member for his autocratic administration and prejudicial treatment of
the small party.
It now appears that Pang has
been sacrificed for BN unity as the 13th general election looms.
LDP has confirmed it will be
defending the Karamunting state seat in the coming election on May 5 and the
Pang family may still get to represent the constituency through incumbent’s
nephew, Charles Pang, who is widely tipped to be the party’s candidate for the
seat he vacates.
The younger Pang is LDP
president Liew Vui Keong’s head liaison officer at the Sandakan MP’s office.
The Karamunting assemblyman
has only himself to blame for being sidelined by the ruling coalition
leadership in the high-stakes electioneering in Sabah.
Pang was the DCM when he was
still with LDP. After he quit LDP the DCM post went to PBS’ Dr Yee Moh Chai.
His departure from the party
was a surprise as prior to his defection to peninsula-based Gerakan in support
of Musa, Pang had widely praised Liew during a party congress for giving him
the chance to represent the party.
Liew, the incumbent Sandakan
MP, said the ruling coalition leadership has decided that the seat would be
given back to the party after Pang quit and joined Gerakan, giving the
peninsula party an unprecedented three assembly seats without having contested
in the last election.
Liew told reporters that BN
chairman, Najib Tun Razak, was expected to announce the list of candidates
today, five days before nomination day on Saturday.
The party is confident of
retaining all three of its state assembly seats and the Sandakan parliamentary
constituency it won in the last general election. The other state seats it
holds are Tanjung Kapor in Kudat and Merotai in Tawau.
“Not only for Karamunting
but all LDP candidates who will contest in GE13 have the potential to win for
the party and BN,” said Liew after presenting 1Malaysia notebooks to 61 Ujian
Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) top scorers from 10 Chinese national-type
schools at Che Siang Khor Uplifting Society in Sim-Sim here on Saturday.
Economy slowdown
Liew said his party had been
preparing for the election and “our operation rooms” had been ready since last
year.
“The preparation for
Sandakan is turning out well with the cooperation from Elopura and Tanjung
Papat BN machineries.
“We have been working
together collectively and I am sure we can retain the BN seats,” he said.
Liew assured more
development in his constituency if BN were given the mandate to rule again.
However, independent
observers have noted that the once predominantly Chinese Sandakan parliamentary
constituency is now considered “mixed”.
“The population of Muslim
Bumiputeras and I suspect voters have now more or less equalled that of the
Chinese,” said a local businessman who requested anonymity.
He was among few businessmen
who lamented the slowdown of Sandakan’s economy, once the powerhouse of the
state, that was fueled by the timber boom of the 1970s and 80s and supplanted
by the rapidly expanding oil palm industry.
However, while the industry
continues to putter along, palm oil prices have dropped and the spin offs from
the industry have yet to raise the economic profile of the now sleepy east
coast town.
Its famed seafood
restaurants that dot the coast were largely empty during the evenings and taxi
drivers who did a brisk business ferrying non-residents around spoke of
difficulties making ends meet.
“Wait and see, wait and see
is what they tell us (about the economy picking up). Sekarang I see only let
them wait,” said Aziz, a taxi driver. (FMT)
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