PARTI Warisan president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal has named Datuk Darrell Leiking as his successor in the party during the Sabah legislative assembly session yesterday (May 23).
In October 2016, the Semporna MP and Leiking, who is also Shafie’s deputy, co-founded Warisan. Two years later, Shafie became the Sabah chief minister.
Both Shafie and Leiking retained their party positions unopposed last year.
“If anything happens to me, Moyog [assemblyman] will take over,” Shafie was reported as saying.
In the same session, Shafie also encouraged the state government to put forward a law to ban lawmakers from defecting, adding that without such laws, defections will result in political instability.
“As a Sabahan, I am embarrassed… I hide my face as a Sabahan,” the Senallang assemblyman said.
Defections have been a major problem for Warisan over the last three years, most notably during the 2020 legislative assembly elections, when, despite Warisan winning 23 seats, six state assemblypersons had defected.
The Sabah government has listed the “anti-hopping bill” as the last agenda on its order paper for the ongoing legislative assembly sitting.
Sabah is one of five states that do not have laws that require a state assembly seat to be vacated if the incumbent switches to another party. The other states are Johor, Malacca, Pahang, and Terengganu.
Yesterday, The Borneo Post reported Sabah State Assembly Speaker Datuk Seri Kadzim M Yahya as saying that adequate time will be given to ensure that the amendment to the Sabah State Constitution, involving the Anti-Party Hopping Bill, can be tabled and debated at the current seating of the Sabah State Assembly.
He said that there was no problem in terms of the tabling of the Bill, although it was placed in the fourth and last position to be tabled at the four-day conference, which will last until this Thursday (May 25).
Kadzim was responding to a question from Shafie who wanted to know whether there was enough time to table and debate the Anti-Party Hopping Bill as it was placed as the last bill to be tabled in the current sitting. – May 24, 2023
