SAPP Vote of No-Confidence

SAPP, a component party from Sabah, has announced its vote of no-confidence against PM Abdullah Badawi. The party will decide if it should continue to remain in the BN by end of next week. This is the most serious challenge to BN's viability as a coalition since the last general election.

For sure, next week's parliament will be an exciting session. For now, it hard to see SAPP's motion of no-confidence receiving enough support from its 222 members and eventually push for Abdullah's resignation. SAPP’s two MPs are Datuk Eric Enchin Majimbun (P171 Sepanggar) and Datuk Dr Chua Soon Bui (P190 Tawau).

Parliament's Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia will find it hard to juggle between his loyalty to BN or Sabahans.

The statement listed four areas of dissatisfaction with Abdullah's premiership:

1) That no concrete action had been taken on the issue of illegal immigrants, despite repeated requests by SAPP and other Barisan component parties;

2) That the government had offered no holistic economic solutions to cushion the blow of the sudden hike in fuel prices, which had greatly burdened the people and threatened further hardcore poverty;

3) That not enough attention had been paid to issues raised by the people of Sabah -- poor delivery systems, corruption, wastage, lack of transparency and accountability -- and that SAPP would have failed in its duty as elected representatives if these issues continued to be ignored; and

4) That the people have lost confidence in Abdullah, and that if he can't perform, he should step aside and make way for another leader to take over.

However, it is fair to note that Sabah's woes did not start during Abdullah's tenure. The controversial Project IC was allegedly started by Dr Mahathir Mohamad which gave Malaysian ICs to hundreds of thousands illegal immigrants in Sabah. Despite being one of the resource endowed states in Malaysia, Sabah's poverty rates hovered around 23 percent.

Sabahans' woes now came back to haunt BN under the leadership of Abdullah Badawi.

It is also pertinent for SAPP, which was established in 1994, to do its own soul searching. It is part of the administration which led to the decline of Sabah. It must shoulder some responsibility for allowing Sabah to deteriorate to its present state.

Is Yong Teck Lee acting for his own interest or Sabahans? Earlier, Yong was disappointed for not being nominated to stand in a parliamentary seat.