KOTA KINABALU: There is a pressing need to adopt the anti-hopping law in Sabah to ensure political stability in the state, says a Parti Warisan assemblyman.
Tungku rep Assafal Alian said the state government must table the anti-party hopping law, more so after the political crisis that unfolded in the state over the week.
Assafal said the law which prohibited MPs from crossing the floor was enforced on Oct 5 last year, adding the Federal Government had subsequently called on the states to adopt the law.
“However, the anti-hopping law has yet to be implemented by the Sabah government despite several statements in the media by the Chief Minister (Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor) who gave the commitment to do so since early November,” he said on Thursday (Jan 12).
“After looking at what happened of late as well as the political turmoil involving the Sabah government since Malaysia’s formation, I urge for the state government to table the law immediately,” he added.
Assafal said the tabling of the law would be in line with the move at the federal level and several other states in the country, adding the law was aimed at restoring trust in the democracy and political system.
“If the law is tabled and passed at the Sabah State Assembly, it would bring about political stability and development continuance, at least in the foreseeable future,” said the Warisan supreme council member.
Hajiji had in Oct last year initially said that Sabah was keeping to the scheduled tabling of the anti-party hopping enactment during the Assembly’s Budget 2023 sitting in late November, after the 15th General Election.
However, he then said during the tabling of the state Budget that the state government would not be tabling the anti-hopping Bill during the week-long session.
Hajiji said that this is because the focus of the session was on the Sabah Budget.
The Sabah political crisis which unfolded last week saw Sabah Barisan Nasional-Umno pulling its support from the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) government.
There was a possibility that Warisan, with its 19 assemblymen, and the 17 Barisan reps teamed up with smaller parties to unseat the Hajiji-led government.
However, GRS managed to muster the support of 44 assemblymen, including five Sabah Umno assemblymen who broke ranks from the Sabah Barisan ouster led by its chief Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin, to back Hajiji to remain as the Chief Minister.
This enabled Hajiji to stay on as the state’s top leader after garnering a simple majority in the 79-member state assembly.
As a result, the Sulaman assemblyman appointed new state ministers including two of the Sabah Umno dissidents and two from Sabah Pakatan Harapan, a Cabinet reshuffle that saw Bung Moktar lose his Deputy Chief Minister’s and Works Minister’s positions while his two other loyal Umno assemblymen, namely Datuk Yakubah Khan and Datuk Jafry Ariffin, also lost their ministerships.
