SATURDAY- 21ST JUNE 2008-SAPP ready to be expelled

SAPP ready to be expelled
Supreme Council endorses motion of no-confidence: Yong

KOTA KINABALU:
Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) Supreme Council unanimously agreed to support a motion on a vote of no-confidence against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in the coming Parliamentary sitting, according to its President Datuk Yong Teck Lee.
Describing the decision as “consensus of the Supreme Council members”, Yong said they had endorsed the motion during their five-and-a–half-hour closed door meeting.
Asked whether his Deputy, Datuk Raymond Tan Shu Kiah, was agreeable to the decision, Yong said twice that “before we started the meeting, our decision was that all of us would accept whatever decision that would be made”. “All Supreme Council members will accept whatever decision to be made by the Supreme Council irrespective of their personal views. Having argued on that, all councilors will accept whatsoever the decision, it is that we will endorse the proposal of vote of no-confidence by our two Members of Parliament (Datuk Eric Majimbun (Sepanggar) and Datuk Chua Soon Bui (Tawau),” he said.
Yong said there was no vote taken, stressing that it was all consensus.
Of the 35 Supreme Council members, only 29 attended the meeting, including SAPP Deputy President Datuk Raymond Tan and Luyang Assemblywoman Melanie Chia, both of whom were absent from the party’s press conference on Wednesday.
Asked whether the decision was made on the issue of pulling out from the ruling coalition, Yong replied that initially it was not on the agenda, but the matter was raised and discussed, and they agreed that there was no decision to pull out of BN.
“Are we still in BN? That one you will have to ask the BN leadership. Why are we still in BN? Well, we have made a decision to endorse no-confidence vote on PM; we take it from there, today is not the end of the story,” Yong said.
“But we were surprised when the BN Supreme Council did not inform and invite us to attend the emergency meeting held in Kuala Lumpur yesterday (Thursday). We are after all still a component party.
“Are we waiting for expulsion? We are ready to accept the consequences,” Yong told media representatives at the SAPP headquarters at Bornion Centre here yesterday.
He said SAPP would only write officially to BN to explain the Party’s stand if they receive a written request from the coalition. To date, there is none.
“I was told that the reason why SAPP was not invited is because they wanted to discuss about SAPP but there was no decision made for whatsoever reason. And I was told that throughout the three-and-half-hour meeting, they were discussing about SAPP and not issues raised by us,” he said.
“If they can spend three-and-a-half hours to talk on how to deal with SAPP, why didn’t they talk about why SAPP made this stand, which are the issues raised such as economy, illegal immigrants, increase in the prices of fuel and products, security and autonomy, among others?” he asked.
Yong was confident that the Party will remain intact, stressing that it would even grow stronger especially as they have been receiving overwhelming response and encouragement via hundreds of SMSes, e-mails and the people visiting the SAPP blog.
Asked whether he expected anyone to leave SAPP, Yong quickly replid:”No.”
To another question whether SAPP was still committed to BN, Yong said that they are committed to its platform and causes.
Touching on the fate of SAPP Assemblymen and MPs, Yong said he would leave the matter to the State Government to decide, adding, “We will leave matters related to the Government to the Government.”