Taken from Daily Express
Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) President Datuk Yong Teck Lee said the meeting between Tawau MP Datuk Dr Chua Soon Bui and Minister-in-charge-of-Parliament, Datuk Nazri Mohd Noor, has cast SAPP in a very bad light.
Describing the meeting and photo session on July 7 as "unfortunate" he said the effect of it was as though the party had back-tracked from the no-confidence motion against the Prime Minister.
"Although Dr Chua never mentioned words to the effect that the proposed motion of no confidence had been 'dropped' or 'aborted', her comments were misinterpreted," he said here Wednesday.
"This latest twist makes me sad that our noble struggle has been damaged in the eyes of the people whose hopes for a better future rest with SAPP," he added.
To put things in the right perspective and to reaffirm SAPP's struggle for the people and Sabah, Yong revealed that he had earlier told Chua who is also a SAPP Vice President "to be extremely careful when dealing with some KL leaders, (that) it is like swimming with sharks".
"I had alerted her that we had discovered the tactic of the BN leaders to use her and Deputy President cum Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Raymond Tan to 'split SAPP and isolate Yong Teck Lee'," he said.
He said at first, there were doubts as to why the BN generously gave a long period of 30 days to SAPP to reply its show cause letter.
"Later, it dawned on us in SAPP that the lengthy 30-day period was actually intended to give time to BN's efforts 'to split SAPP and isolate Yong Teck Lee'.
"This is why the move by PBS and LDP for an immediate expulsion of SAPP from BN was not carried.
"BN tacticians wanted SAPP to be split and to lose the support of the people before action is taken against SAPP. BN did not want to repeat their mistake of 1984 when they expelled Usno, which had opposed the federalisation of Labuan.
"In State elections the following year (1985), the BN was almost completely wiped out by PBS and Usno," he said.
Yong said as (Upko President) Tan Sri Bernard Dompok observed last month, Sabahans are a laid back people and unsuspecting.
But in the rough world of federal politics, many earlier Sabahan leaders have been "eaten alive" and came home defeated and disgraced, he claimed.
According to him, from the books "Politics of Federalism" (on Syed Kechik in East Malaysia, 1976) to the banned book "Golden Son of the Kadazan" (on the late Datuk Peter Mojuntin, 1976) and "Harris of Sabah" (1986), The Making of a Malaysian (on Datuk J. Pairin Kitingan, 1991) and countless recollections, Malaysians in Sabah have endured a collective history of betrayals, disappointments and failures.
"I am sure this latest episode will make our Datuk Dr Chua Soon Bui a stronger leader who can tell the hard truths to federal leaders, however friendly they might seem on a personal basis."