UMNO ‘MASTER’ OF THE LESSER PARTIES

Putatan Umno’s ultimatum absurd – UPKO

KOTA KINABALU Jan 18, 2012: UPKO vice president Datuk Wences Anggang has described Putatan Umno’s ultimatum to have the Putatan parliamentary seat allocated to the party in the next general election as absurd.

It also reflects the arrogant attitude of Umno and that some leaders in Umno have no respect for the other component members of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, Anggang said in a statement yesterday.

“We expect Umno leaders to lead by example and to ‘walk the talk’ in as far as the 1Malaysia concept is concerned where each member of the BN coalition shows mutual respect towards each other and to reach a decision based on mutual understanding and consensus.

“Unfortunately they are becoming more and more arrogant and using ‘bullying tactics’ to intimidate other members of the component coalition clearly showing themselves to be the ‘master’ of the lesser parties,” he lamented.

Anggang reminded Putatan Umno that BN is a multi-racial organisation and each elected member of either Parliament seat or State seat is expected to represent all members of society within their constituency disregarding racial or religious factors.

As such demanding for seat or “seat grabbing” for that matter under the guise of racial or religious sentiments is totally unacceptable, he pointed out.

UPKO members, according to Anggang, have no problem and no reason to complain when, under the directive of the party leadership and in line with the BN spirit of “camaraderie,” they were to vote for candidates from among the BN parties in areas where the KadazandusunMuruts (KDM) are the majority.

“Personally, I would agree to such request by Putatan Umno under those conditions they have forwarded if under the same criteria they are prepared to also give up the State constituencies of Kemabong, Liawan, Karanaan and Beluran parliamentary constituency and be given to a KDM-based party within the BN coalition since these areas are predominantly KDM-majority areas.

“Or perhaps Putatan Umno should suggest to their leaders to let UPKO ‘have it our way’ in the next election to determine if our candidates are a ‘winnable’ as alleged by Putatan Umno or if we have well-respected, qualified, responsible and ‘winnable’ candidates.

“The 13th general election is approaching and issues cropping up such as the one raised by Putatan Umno is to be totally avoided. Each BN member party needed the undivided support of each other and with such issues being unreasonably raised at this time will surely weaken our coalition.

“I suggest for the sake of BN Sabah that every leader of the coalition, especially those belonging to the bigger party to abide by the decision taken by the more senior leaders in Umno to leave the issues of candidacy to the top leadership in BN,” he said.

--------------

Don’t hurt others, Mojigoh tells Putatan Umno