Sabah BN coalition member LDP today warned Gerakan against making any move to claim the Karamunting state seat in the next general election.

NONE LDP president Liew Vui Keong ( right ) said the seat, currently held by state Youth and Sports Minister Peter Pang, is a traditional LDP seat and will remain an LDP seat.

“We have held the seat since 1999 and won every single election there. I won’t allow Gerakan to take the seat... it is not up for negotiation,” he said when met in the Parliament lobby.

Yesterday, Pang - a former LDP vice-president - formally joined Gerakan, making him the third state assemblyperson to defect from their parties and join the national party.

Pang quit from LDP in September last year, after party leaders were reported to have said they could no longer work with Chief Minister Musa Aman.

peter pang Liew, who is also deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, pointed out that under his leadership LDP had delivered a 100 percent win rate in the three state seats and one parliamentary seat they contested in the 2008 general election.

“With that victory we were given a (state) cabinet post that went to Peter Pang ( left ). Now he brings that post and wants to claim Karamunting (for Gerakan), when it is LDP that put him there in the first place.

“Gerakan cannot claim to have established a foothold in Sabah when they have only secured three YBs (elected representatives) by default. It appears to many that these three YBs are merely using Gerakan as a stop-gap measure to keep their positions in the government,” he said dismissively.

The two other state assemblypersons who joined Gerakan are former deputy chief minister and Tanjung Papat elected representative Raymond Tan Shu Kiah and Elopura elected representative Au Kam Wah - both leaving SAPP after disagreeing with the party’s decision to leave BN.

Liew attacked Gerakan for poor character in accepting the three party-less state assemblypersons, implying that it will not translate to much for the national party.

“I have no doubt the people can analyse for themselves and see this clearly... Gerakan is running on borrowed time and are simply grabbling whatever they can,” Liew said, adding that Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon made no effort to consult him on Pang’s entry into Gerakan.

Liew noted that he is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak today to make clear LDP’s stand on the issue.