KUCHING, April 24: Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) president Tan Sri James Masing has opined that the Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) Candidates Agreement (CA) penalty is simply a political gimmick.
“Much as I support PBK’s RM20 million deterrent to prevent the elected reps from betraying the trust of the voters, it’s simply a political gimmick, unless PBK takes the law into their own hands by wielding a big stick against those political frogs,” he said.
Masing was responding to a news article published recently by a local English paper saying “Politicians from PBK who are nominated to stand in elections and leave the party to be independents, or defect to opposing camps after being elected will have to compensate the party a whopping RM20 to RM50 million”.
Masing noted that in the 1990s, the Sarawak State Legislative Assembly (DUN) passed laws to stop elected representatives from hopping from party to party.
He said they got tired of elected representatives betraying the trust of their voters at the ‘tinkle’ of coins or the change of their political beliefs, which were why the anti-hopping laws were passed.
“It was dismissed as null and void by the Federal Court (FC) which recognises freedom of associations,” he added. –DayakDaily.
