During an online webinar recently, Tun Mahathir Mohamad revealed that he will campaign against the allegedly corrupt Sabah state assemblymen who party-hopped and sided former chief minister Tan Sri Musa Aman and against Perikatan Nasional (PN). In his claim, he will also ensure that those who hopped parties will be punished by voters in the coming Sabah state election. This shows that Tun Mahathir is adamant about wanting Warisan to reign so that he could stay ‘functional’ to his loyal ‘puppet’, Dato’ Seri Shafie Apdal.
Echoing Tun Mahathir’s statement, Shafie Apdal said that Warisan will not consider any “political frogs” as candidates for the coming election. He added, loyalty is an utmost criterion for any of the party candidates to contest. Well logically, what else could Shafie Apdal look for in them to uphold the party’s name after the embarrassing party-hopping committed by its nine assemblymen on 30 July 2020 to support his arch enemy, Musa Aman? Furthermore, the ‘definition’ of loyalty is so bleak now as any party members would technically leave their organization due to numerous reasons, namely personal interest, coercion, change of political stance, political ‘whoring’, etc. In other words, they jump ship for various reasons. In fact, Shafie Apdal left UMNO in 2016 due to reasons that only he knew and established Warisan. The same goes with Tun Mahathir when he left UMNO and created Bersatu. Thus, ‘loyalty’ to a party is contextually subjective. These two leaders are just manipulating the term “loyalty” to their own advantage, not for value, credibility, integrity or principles.
Aren’t Tun Mahathir and Shafie Apdal being hypocritical in their stance against party-hoppers? Or shouldn’t Shafie Apdal emulate Tun Mahathir’s doings in the past when the latter personally welcomed UMNO defectors into Bersatu with open arms? Well, look who’s talking now.
By Adillah Jaafar
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