KOTA KINABALU, Oct 1 — Sabah STAR president Datuk Seri Jeffrey Kitingan has said that his party will leave the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) coalition if it proceeds with its electoral pact with Pakatan Harapan (PH) in the coming state election.
Kitingan, who is also Deputy Chief Minister, said he would raise the matter at the GRS presidential council meeting tonight, chaired by coalition chairman Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor.
“The way I look at it, when I met the CM (Hajiji) a few days ago, they had already decided. So if they have decided, the presidential meeting will be just an endorsement now,” he said.
“But if at the last minute he says, ‘okay, we listen to the people, we go solo’, then I go along with it.
“If they don’t, then I can’t go along because that is going against the sentiment of the majority of the people. They are the ones deciding, voting. How can I go against the people?” he added.
Kitingan said he had earlier proposed that PH defend only its seven incumbent seats using the GRS logo, but was later told they would be allocated as many as 21 to 23 seats.
“They are asking for 23, from their seven. When I asked him (Hajiji) last week, he said like 20, 21, like that. The most I could have agreed is if they maintain, maintain the seven seats,” he said.
He stressed that staying in a pact with PH would go against the wishes of voters who want local parties to contest under GRS alone.
On whether Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) would also leave if the pact goes through, Kitingan said it was unlikely PBS leaders would take that path.
“From the convention, it’s clear they want PBS-Star to go solo. And how can we ignore that? So if I go to the side of the members and the public, and the PBS members want solo also, if the leadership doesn’t go, then that is a disappointment. They will have to face the wrath of the members,” he said.
Kitingan said Sabah STAR wants to provide the opportunity for people who want GRS to go solo.
“If we don’t go solo, they will not support us. If we stay with GRS in a pact with PH, we will be rejected by the voters,” he added.
“Even if my YBs abandon me, I will go myself. They can put me in jail, they can hang me, but they cannot hang my spirit, they cannot stop. They cannot break your spirit. Even if I have to go alone, I’ll go alone,” he said.
On the recent corruption allegations against him by businessman Datuk Albert Tei, Kitingan said they were political persecution designed in timing to weaken him.
“It (the latest allegations) is to destroy my image. And then to weaken GRS. And then to frighten my people, especially my YBs (elected assemblymen).
“They accuse me of corruption, but this is just to make me yield. This is what they are doing — using corruption to silence me. But I will not give in,” he said.
“This is not new. They used Special Branch to try to monitor me. Then income tax, they used income tax. Eventually, when they could not find anything, they used ISA. Now corruption. But I am not worried,” he said.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Kitingan was held under the Internal Security Act while serving as Yayasan Sabah director.
He accused Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim of hypocrisy, pointing to Sabah’s unfulfilled constitutional entitlement of 40 per cent of federal revenue collected in the state.
“In Anwar‘s recent speech, what did he say? We steal billions of dollars? Are we stealing billions of dollars? Who is stealing billions of dollars? The federal government, they are the ones taking our oil resources. That means they rob us,” he said.
