Trouble appears to be brewing in Sabah PKR where a group of division chiefs have expressed no confidence in the leadership of recently appointed state chief and party vice-president Azmin Ali.

The 16 PKR division chiefs met informally last night at an undisclosed location in Kota Kinabalu over this issue. The hour-long meeting was moderated by Kota Belud division chief Jalumin Boyogoh Samin.

Jalumin was not immediately available for comment but it was confirmed that results of the informal meeting have been conveyed to the party hierarchy in Kuala Lumpur and Penang.

Twenty-three of the 25 division chiefs, excluding Sepanggar and Sandakan which are suspended, and Azmin were reportedly invited to the meeting via mobile phone text messages.

It was reliably learnt that the seven divisions which were unrepresented were Tuaran, Kalabakan, Semporna, Ranau, Tawau, Lahad Datu and Libaran.

Tawau did not attend the informal meeting because the division wants to remain neutral, according to party insiders. One of the three deputy state chiefs, Kong Hong Ming, heads the division.

azmin ali pc in parliament 020709 02 Azmin, as it was confirmed by two division chiefs separately, did not turn up either. Instead, he sent word that he was agreeable to Kalabakan division chief Hamzah Amir taking over as Sabah PKR chief and confirmed that he communicated the matter to the party leadership.

Hamzah, a Bajau, was formerly the Tawau municipal council president.

"If he (Azmin) had turned up, we could have told him to his face what we really think of him in Sabah," confirmed a west coast divisional chief who requested anonymity.

"We don't want these very imperial ketuanan Melayu (Malay political supremacy) types in Sabah. He's ex-Umno and has not changed one bit since joining PKR."

Even Anwar had given up

The 16 Sabah division chiefs not only want Azmin out of his appointed post in Sabah with immediate effect, they also recommended that no one from outside Sabah should be appointed to head the PKR chapter in the state ever again.

Azmin is the Gombak MP and state assemblyperson for Bukit Antarabangsa in Selangor.

It is not that we are against outsiders heading Sabah PKR even temporarily but no one from somewhere else could possibly understand the intricacies of the local politics here," agreed the division chief from the east coast.

anwar sodomy 2 duta court hearing pkr leaders 080709 12 "Even (Opposition Leader) Anwar Ibrahim gave up on Sabah after a short while. Maybe he was too busy especially with court cases and other matters in Peninsular Malaysia to keep him occupied."

In the second recommendation, it was pointed out that the party constitution calls for the state chief to be appointed by the president, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, with the majority approval of the 25 division chiefs.

However, it appears that this was not done. Instead, Azmin was in fact appointed as Sabah chief in late June by Anwar, presumably with the consent of the party president who is his wife.

Prior to Azmin’s appointment, Anwar was Sabah chief for less than two months. He took over from Tuaran division chief Ansari Abdullah, an Indian-Bajau/Dusun. Ansari is a senior practicing lawyer in Kota Kinabalu and a longtime Anwar confidante.

Ansari was in the middle of a discussion, according to his office, and could not come to the phone immediately.

In a third recommendation, passed by consensus as reported, it was agreed to put forward Keningau division chief Jeffrey Gapari Kitingan as the new Sabah chief to replace Azmin.

"Initially, three names were bandied about before the meeting but finally we agreed to settle on Kitingan," confirmed the west coast division chief who declined to confirm or deny the two other names initially proposed.

It was reliably learnt that the two other candidates who were on the minds of the divisional chiefs were Putatan division chief Awang Ahmad Shah, a Brunei Malay and Libaran division chief Ahmad Thamrin Jaini, a Bajau married to a Filipino.

Thamrin, an ex-Sabah Foundation official, is also Sabah PKR state secretary.

Kitingan on sabbatical leave

Kitingan, when contacted, was coy about his plans and whether he would accept the post of Sabah PKR Chief. It was confirmed by the two divisional chiefs that he did not object when his name was put forward by the informal meeting.

"Actually, I will be on three months sabbatical leave after a meeting of the Borneo Forum with our Sarawak and Kalimantan friends in Bintulu on Oct 10," said Kitingan.

"The Borneo Forum will be attended by the Borneo Heritage Foundation which I chair, the Sarawak Dayak National Union and the Majlis Adat Dayak Kalimantan."

Kitingan declined to go into the details of the informal meeting but confirmed that he "will be within easy reach during the three months to attend to party matters". He expressed surprise that news of the informal meeting had leaked out.

Asked where he would be spending the three months, he said it would be mostly in Tambunan, a mountain valley in the high country where he comes from and runs a resort.