By: JOE FERNANDEZ

SABAH Peoples Progressive Party (SAPP) has firmly rejected the latest overtures from Pakatan Rakyat. It sees little difference between Barisan Nasional, which it left on Sept 17 last year, and the opposition alliance.

"We have no intention whatsoever of joining Pakatan Rakyat," pledged Sapp president Yong Teck Lee before party members in Putatan in Kota Kinabalu last night.

"It will be against our struggle to win back the autonomy of Sabah and prevent the federal government from continuing to interfere in Sabah affairs," he said.

Yong noted that Pakatan in Sabah still took orders from Kuala Lumpur and this apparently made it impossible for Sapp to be a member of the opposition alliance.

The party faithful had in recent months witnessed an intense struggle in PKR between those who wanted autonomy and those dubbed proxies and traitors, who were willing to take orders from KL.

Return power to the people

Explaining Sapp's rejection of membership in Pakatan, Yong sketched a hypothetical scenario where both his party and the latter end up with 20 seats each in the next general election. "We would have to still refer to Kuala Lumpur for decisions," said Yong. "Pakatan in KL would also decide who should be the chief minister of Sabah."

Yong reiterated that his party would never accept KL dictating to Sabahans on who among them should be their leader.

The Sapp chief vowed that Sapp is determined to return power to the people besides ensuring that the federal government will no longer meddle in the administration of the state.

He stressed that this is crucial as it is in line with a democratic system. The people have the right and full power to elect their government, he added, as well as to decide on the senior positions in the state administration which include the chief minister.

“What is happening under the BN rule now is that the chief minister is chosen by Kuala Lumpur,” said Yong. “The BN chief minister of Sabah can be replaced at anytime if Kuala Lumpur wishes. Everything has to be also referred to KL.”

Yong noted that even the candidacy of a BN candidate in an election is decided by Kuala Lumpur.

"There's no need for these candidates to obtain the blessing from the people. All that they need to do is to go to Kuala Lumpur to lobby for it," he said. "And all that a BN candidate needs to do to win an election is to buy votes by giving RM50 to each voter. This has to be changed once and for all."

Accept SAPP as lead player

Yong said that his party's stand against accepting membership in Pakatan was made known again in recent days. However, he does not rule out working together with the opposition alliance in the forthcoming general election provided that Pakatan is willing to accept Sapp as the lead player in Sabah.

"We can win at least 40 state seats in Sabah although we only need 31 to form the state government," said Yong. "Our intention is to form a government with a two-thirds majority."

Yong sees the remaining 20 or less of the 60 state seats being up for grabs between BN and Pakatan. It appears that the only way that Pakatan can prevent Sapp from staking claim to 40 state seats or more in Sabah is to incorporate locally.

Yong did not mention how many parliamentary seats that Sapp is eyeing. Sabah has 25 parliament seats. The party won four state seats and two parliamentary seats last year under its allocation while in the BN. Its departure from BN saw the number of state seats cut down to two as the other two state assemblypersons defected to Gerakan in order to hold on to their government positions.

The Sapp chief was convinced that the people of Sabah will likewise give their full support to a multiracial party like Sapp. The present trend, as reflected in the outcome of the last general election, demonstrated that the people no longer subscribe nor support race-based parties like the component parties in BN, continued Yong.

Yong was also convinced that Sapp is capable of presenting a leader who will be accepted by the people of all races, regardless of the leader's ethnic origins.

He noted that one of the BN component parties, the Kadazandusun-based Upko, has started to transform itself to be recognised as a multiracial party by adding the word 'national' to its name.

"Once upon a time, Upko was known as Parti Demokratik Sabah (PDS), which is a multiracial party, but it later decided to become a race-based party by changing its name to Upko," said Yong. "But it seems that it now wants to revert back to its former identity of being a multiracial party due to the present trend."

The Sapp chief has held his peace so far on possible membership in Pakatan but was apparently moved to take a public stand after Sabah DAP raised the stakes. It is claiming that an opposition electoral pact would exclude non-members.

Pakatan leaders in KL, however, have always seen themselves as being in a Pakatan Plus relationship with Sapp. The party meanwhile clearly sees itself being in a Sapp Plus relationship in Sabah with the opposition alliance.