Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president VK Liew wants fairness and reasonableness on the part of Chief Minister Musa Aman in handling the matter surrounding the retention of Peter Pang En Yin as a state cabinet minister and the vacancy of the deputy chief minister's post.   

While acknowledging the prerogative power of the chief minister of the day over the appointment of a cabinet minister, he however, said that in exercising such discretionary power, it was an established norm that it was done judiciously.     

He said Musa had also taken into consideration the interest of all component parties in the Barisan Nasional (BN).     

Liew said this to reporters when asked on the vacancy of the deputy chief minister's post in the Sabah cabinet after the launch of the Sandakan Street Fair today.     

Karamunting assemblyman Pang - who has been party-less since leaving LDP in September last year, following LDP deputy president Chin Su Phin's announcement that the party leadership could no longer work with Musa - applied to join Gerakan last week, along with more than 100 of his supporters in a simple ceremony in Sandakan.     

Liew, who is a deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department, cited the precedent set in the case of T Murugiah who was sacked by the People's Progressive Party (PPP) in 2009, but retained in Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's cabinet.     

"That demonstrated the prerogative power of the prime minister. In 2010, the prime minister continued to retain him as a deputy minister in the JPM (prime minister's department) but PPP was 'compensated' with a senator, a deputy minister and an ambassador...     

"That reflects fairness and reasonableness on the part of the prime minister in handling the matter," he said.     

He said LDP had contributed four seats to BN in the last general election in 2008, by winning all the seats contested in Tanjung Kapor (Kudat), Merotai (Tawau), Karamunting (Sandakan) and Sandakan Parliament.     

"In that respect, we have contributed 100 per cent to the victory of BN in the 2008 general election.     

"It is also an undeniable fact that LDP has contributed positively to the political development in Sabah since its formation in 1989," he said.   

PBRS seeks greater BN role

Meanwhile at its 17th anniversary today, Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) sought a greater role in the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.   

President Joseph Kurup said the party, although labelled a small one, had the strength to contribute to the victory of the BN in the next general election.     

He said it had the capacity to win more seats if they were allocated to it. In the last general election, PBRS won the Sook state seat and the Pensiangan parliamentary seat which were allocated to it to contest on a BN ticket.     

Kurup, who is Federal Deputy Natural Resources and Environment Minister, said PBRS had played a major supportive role when the BN was facing a challenge after the Sabah state election of 1994.      

This included facing up to anti-federal and anti-BN sentiments which had reached a peak then, he said at the party's 17th anniversary celebration, here.

- Bernama