By Joe Fernandez
KOTA KINABALU: Veteran politician Karim Ghani, 70, who quit Umno on Monday, has vowed for a second day in a row to send his former party packing from Sabah.
He renewed the pledge here last night at a PKR goodwill dinner which was witnessed by several senior leaders led by vice-president Jeffrey Gapari Kitingan.
Senior PKR activist and former health minister Chua Jui Meng was guest of honour. He was accompanied by party seniors Michael Bong from Sarawak and David Yeoh from Johor.
“I am the one who single-handedly brought Umno to Sabah,” said Karim before a full house at a popular seafood restaurant here. “I hope to send this party back to where it came from,” he said to applause.
He told the party faithful that he “had a score to settle with Umno”. “It’s payback time. We will start with the Batu Sapi by-election – 25 activists already on the ground – and work our way towards the next general election.”
Citing from Sabah’s recent political history, he pointed out that Berjaya was used to topple the United Sabah National Organisation (Usno), Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) was used to topple Berjaya, Umno was used “not to topple but grab power” from PBS, and “Pakatan Rakyat can topple Umno in Sabah”.
Karim’s beef with Umno is that the Peninsular-based party “has forgotten why it came to Sabah in the first place, that is, to help Usno members”. Instead, Umno is “playing footsie” with PBS, the very party that sidelined Usno for nine long years, added Karim. “Usno was also in the cold for nine years under the Berjaya administration.”
Karim recalled that when Usno went from 17 state seats, during the 1985 state election which toppled Berjaya, to 12 seats the following year in a snap election, the party leaders realised that it was the end for them. So, the decision was made to bring in Umno and get Usno members to join the former en bloc, he said. “I took the initiative to bring Umno to Sabah after PBS left BN in 1990 and was immediately sacked by Usno.”
Subsequently, then Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had Usno de-registered when he realised that its members were returning to their old party after abandoning Umno, said Karim. “Now, all our attempts to re-register Usno have been thwarted by Umno and the Registrar of Societies.”
'Cium tangan culture must go'
Umno, noted Karim, has a certain system, culture and practices in place which endure despite the change of leaders. “When a new leader comes in, only the style changes, but the system, culture and practices continue.”
“This cium tangan (hand-kissing) culture must go,” said Karim. “The 2008 general election has opened up a window of opportunity for us. We must make use of it at the next 13th general election.”
Failure to capitalise on the next general election, he warned, would be to miss the window of opportunity and wait another 50 years for change.
He said this message must be communicated to the people by all available means – text messaging, blogs, FaceBook – besides word-of-mouth. “We must recapture the Spirit of 1963,” said Karim who has since added another eight points to the original 20 Points under which Sabah agreed to help form Malaysia in 1963. “We must win back our autonomy and increase the oil royalty to at least 20%.”
Karim appears to be the clearest indication that many local Muslims have decided to part company with Umno, which has often been accused of harbouring illegal immigrants with MyKads. The illegal immigrants are seen as the reason for their growing disenfranchisement.
Karim doesn’t see Umno being acceptable to the voters in Peninsular Malaysia either “since the Indians and Chinese are running away from the Barisan Nasional (BN)”. “The flower (Umno) bloomed and attracted the Indians and Chinese to the BN,” said Karim. “Now, it has wilted and will soon die. The Indians and Chinese are not going to stay with the BN.”
Sabah PKR deputy state chief Christina Liew, who organised the function, earlier issued an eight-point challenge to the state government in a brief speech, namely zero undertable money, no little Napoleons in government departments, deal with state agencies which have deviated from their objectives, no government competition with the private sector, and support the private sector.
She also urged against political interference in the award of government contracts, called for the removal of politicians with vested interests, and wants the Ali Baba system of negotiated contracts done away.
One-to-one fight
Former deputy federal minister Kalakau Untol, in his address, described the night as “a gathering of reformists from every party in the country”.
“The task ahead is how to tackle the BN,” said Kalakau who earlier this year quit the United PasokMomogun KadazanDusunMurut Organisation (Upko) to join PKR. “Negotiations are still going on among opposition parties to ensure a one-to-one fight in Batu Sapi.”
Jeffrey said the forthcoming Batu Sapi parliamentary by-election will be “a test of whether the opposition parties can compromise and work together”.
He expects 40% of the Muslim votes – Usno members – in Sekong, one of the two state seats in Batu Sapi, to vote opposition “now that Karim is with us”. The Chinese-majority Karamunting is the other state seat in Batu Sapi.
Jeffrey also said Umno will not only die, it must die before the country sees political change. “They are talking about a New Political Model (NPM) after flogging the New Economic Model (NEM) for months,” said Jeffrey. “This (NPM) will never happen.”
Hence, Jeffrey’s reading is that it would be impossible for Umno to change despite all the party’s talk about a NPM.
Wallowing in poverty
Jeffrey also took a swipe at the federal government's plan to build a 100-storey skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur “while Sabahans wallow in poverty”.
“At the same time, they say they have no money to pay civil servants the bonus that they deserve,” said Jeffrey. “In another unprecedented move, the federal government has money to make allocations available to the private sector.”
The Sabah strongman suspects that Umno is saddling the country with more debts because “it knows it’s going to lose the next general election”. Moreover, it is an irony that Umno is emphasing on a high-income economy “when we (Sabah) are yet to get out from our poverty trap”.
Chua said Sabah has gone under the BN from being the second richest (1970) state in Malaysia to the poorest (2010). He expects this state of affairs to continue since the recent Budget 2011 only allocates a combined 8% of the financial resources to Sabah and Sarawak.
He pledged better days ahead for the two states as Pakatan's Common Policy Framework was the opposition alliance’s “roadmap to Putrajaya”.
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