Sabah and Sarawak must be consulted before there is any move to change the prime minister, as both states are the backbone of Barisan Nasional (BN), Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan said today.
The Sabah BN secretary warned that there would be dire consequences if Datuk Seri Najib Razak was unseated without taking into account the feelings of East Malaysia.
“I’m from Sabah. Changing the prime minister is not only the business of the people from the peninsula. Mind you, we are the backbone of BN. Has anyone asked the component parties?
“If you push this through without considering the feelings of the people of Sabah and Sarawak, there will be ramifications,” Rahman told a press conference after the pre-launch of the Malaysia Day Ride 2015 at PWTC in Kuala Lumpur.
Rahman added that no other prime minister had contributed to Sabah and Sarawak as much as Najib had.
He also praised Najib’s announcement yesterday that Sabah and Sarawak would be given more autonomy, saying that they had waited decades for this.
The two states have been BN’s solid vote bank, despite the coalition continuing to lose ground heavily in the past two general elections.
Meanwhile, Rahman today defended Najib’s preemptive declaration that he was free of corruption, saying that to admit otherwise would be “game over”.
Rahman said that while the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had yet to clear the prime minister, Umno was confident the US$700 million (RM2.67 billion) deposited into Najib’s accounts did not violate any laws.
“I leave it to the MACC. Of course, the prime minister says it’s not corruption. Otherwise it’s game over,” Rahman told a press conference after attending the pre-launch of the Malaysia Day Ride 2015 programme in PWTC.
“We know that it is not corruption, we believe it is not corruption. We believe it is allowed within the constitution of the party and the country’s laws.”
Last Saturday, Najib had reportedly said the MACC had cleared him of corruption.
But the MACC had merely announced that the money deposited into his accounts came from a Middle Eastern donor.
MACC did not reveal the identity of the donor, but said it would ask Najib to provide an explanation for the donation. – August 11, 2015.
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