KUCHING, July 31: Former Sabah chief minister Tan Sri Musa Aman can stop the snap election by bringing the issue to court and challenging whether Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal has the power to dissolve the Sabah State Legislative Assembly (DUN), opined Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan.
“It was a smart move by Shafie as a politician and this had caught Musa’s camp by surprise.
“But if Musa is not happy, he can always bring the matter to court to stop the elections. The legal issue is whether Shafie has the power to advise the Governor to dissolve the DUN because there was no vote of confidence against him as Chief Minister in the DUN,” he said in a statement today.
Voon believed that Shafie had wrongly exercised his power as he doubted that the Sabah Constitution would allow Shafie to seek dissolution of DUN when there was no vote of confidence against him as Chief Minister.
“There is no evidence that he had lost support of the elected representatives in the Sabah DUN.
“What Shafie did was put the cart before the horse. By just having heard Musa had the numbers does not mean Shafie had lost the confidence of the honourable members of the legislature. It could be a ploy to force Shafie to make a wrong political move,” he observed.
Voon recalled that during the Ming Court Affairs which led to the dissolution of DUN, the matter was not brought to court.
“Again a point of challenge is that it is said the Gazette for the dissolution of Sabah Legislature is defective. The Gazette called for the dissolution of 15th Dewan Undangan Negri when it should be the dissolution of 13th Dewan Undangan Negeri Sabah,” he said.
Voon said he has no interest in Sabah politics but just expressing some legal points as a lawyer and a politician.
“The frogs in politics are exposed and they may find themselves receiving the wrath of the voters,” he added.
Sabah will be facing a snap election after the state assembly was dissolved on Thursday (July 30), following attempts by Musa to form a new government after claiming to secure several defections.
Shafie announced the DUN dissolution after getting consent from the state’s Governor Juhar Mahiruddin.
Musa had on Wednesday met the press with 32 state lawmakers and indicated he was ready to form a new government to replace the one led by Shafie’s Parti Warisan Sabah.
The election has to take place within 60 days of the dissolution.
The Sabah State Legislative Assembly has 65 representatives, including five who are nominated. A minimum of 33 seats are needed to form the state government.
The current state government bloc controlled 45 of the 65 seats in the assembly, or more than two-thirds, while the opposition has 20.
The government bloc consists of Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan) with 31 seats, DAP (six), UPKO (two), PKR (two) and four nominated assemblymen.
As for the opposition bloc, Bersatu has nine seats, PBS (four), STAR (three), Independents (two), Umno (one) and one nominated assemblyman. —DayakDaily
