D-Day next week for Sabah DCM Tan

Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Raymond Tan, whose posts in the state cabinet and government now hangs in the balance, will know his fate next week.

His boss, Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman, has confirmed that a decision on Tan’s position has been made but will be announced in the next few days.

“I have made my decision,” confirmed Musa. “(But) you will just have to wait for the announcement.”

He indicated that he had considered the views of leaders in component parties of Barisan Nasional before making his decision.

The reason for the delay on making known Tan’s fate is not known unless some surprises are in store. It is also not known whether Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has a hand in it.

Najib had said during his maiden visit as prime minister to Sabah earlier this week that Musa would make the necessary recommendations to him before a final decision was announced. Najib is BN chairman while Musa heads the Sabah chapter of the coalition.

It will not come as a complete surprise however if Tan ( right ) loses the DCM post but remains as state infrastructure development minister, or is demoted to another, less senior, ministry.

It seems unlikely, given the chief minister’s prerogative powers, that Tan will be completely left out of the state cabinet and government.

However, if Tan is re-confirmed as DCM and in his present ministry, or even a less senior ministry, it is likely to needlessly prolong the controversy.

It is difficult to see how he can insist on having everything his way and not consider a compromise somewhere along the way to satisfy his growing band of critics who are losing patience with him.

Little appreciation for ex-Sapp leader

There is little appreciation if any, among BN leaders that the ex-Sapp (Sabah Progressive Party) deputy president remained with them when his former party pulled out from the coalition on Sept 17 last year. Tan himself has admitted as much.

Sapp then cited loss of confidence in the federal leadership as the reason for the pull-out and expressed unhappiness over a host of unresolved local grievances.

Furthermore, calls for Tan to surrender the DCM post are getting louder from component parties of the nine-member State BN where Peninsular Malaysia-based parties led by Umno outnumber local parties.

These parties want the posts for themselves instead of letting Tan, then partyless and now a Gerakan member, to continue in the two positions.

Tan’s performance so far in government is not the only issue to suddenly emerge from the woodworks.

The virtual non-contribution of Gerakan to Sabah and its disastrous outing in the last general election have also come under sharp public scrutiny in a state whose numbers are of crucial importance in Parliament.

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) deputy president Chin Su Phin, for one, has re-entered the fray with a stirring call to re-shuffle the state cabinet.

Chin had engineered a unanimous LDP supreme council decision last week calling for the removal of Tan and his assistant minister, Japlin Akim from the state cabinet and government.

Japlin has been suspended three years by Umno for alleged involvement in money politics, an Umno euphemism for corruption.

Chin questioned the decision by the partyless Tan to join the Peninsular Malaysia-based Gerakan on Tuesday after nine months of vacillating, waiting and playing hard to get.

“Had Tan joined Gerakan much earlier, matters would not have come to this stage,” said Chin.

“He has to prove that he’s not greedy for posts by resigning and allowing the state cabinet reshuffle to go ahead. He should have quit first before joining Gerakan but he didn’t.”

Tan has already said he has no plans to resign from the state cabinet or his government posts and leaves his fate in the hands of the chief minister.

Rival parties want Tan’s posts

Chin conceded as much when he said that the chief minister had prerogative powers in appointing anyone to the state cabinet and government.

“We sincerely hope that whatever the decision the chief minister makes will be based on the wisdom of the majority and not the views of a few people around him,” said Chin. “We must not forget that during the last general election, the people voted out the Gerakan.”

Chin went on to draw unflattering comparisons between Gerakan and MCA which seems to have the solid backing of LDP for the DCM post held by Tan.

MCA was not accepted by the people of Sabah in the early years, conceded Chin, but after many years of service, the party has managed to win a respectable degree of support and “even has an assistant minister’s post in the state cabinet”.

“Both MCA and LDP hold the same approach,” said Chin, expounding their common political philosophies. “We never lobby for government posts but serve the people quietly. Sabahans are aware whether Gerakan has contributed all this while to the state.”

He warned that if “Tan insisted on retaining his state cabinet and government posts after having joined Gerakan, the majority of the people would not be satisfied still and the issue would not die out easily.”

It is believe that both LDP and MCA did not want to accept Tan as a party member as they would prefer to have his two posts for themselves. Eventually, he went to Gerakan - a party which does not have a sizable based in Sabah.