The 13th general election will be the last that Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan, who is also the president of Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), will be contesting as a candidate.

bn supreme council mt meeting sapp sabah issue 190608 pairin kitingan He said that it was tiring to carry out the responsibilities of an elected representative.

"In the subsequent general election (14th), I won't be contesting. So, everyone must be happy with this decision," he told reporters after launching the State-level Shell Traffic Education Programme 2012 in Kota Kinabalu today.

Pairin, 72, who is the member of parliament for Keningau and the state assemblyperson for Tambunan, has been active in politics since 1975.

When asked by reporters whether he would be defending his parliamentary and state assembly seats, he replied in jest: "It looks like it!"

Gratitude to Najib

In another development, Pairin expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Najib Razak on the handing over of the instruments of appointment in Putrajaya yesterday to the chairperson and members of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to tackle the problems of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

The commission comprises former Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Steve Shim Lip Kiong as the chairperson, and the secretary, Saripuddin Kasim who is also the secretary-general of the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism.

The others were former Universiti Malaysia Sabah vice-chancellor Prof Dr Kamaruzaman Ampon, former state attorney-general of Sabah, Herman Luping, former state secretary KY Mustafa and the Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation deputy chairperson, who was also former Kuala Lumpur police chief Henry Chin Poy Wu.  

- Bernama