Bung apologises for dashing Zahid's 'Umno Sabah CM' dream
A day after becoming the new Sabah deputy chief minister, Bung Moktar Radin has apologised for dashing his party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s hopes of seeing an Umno chief minister.
He also signalled that Umno was unhappy to “take a step back” but would be “preparing” for the future...
A day after becoming the new Sabah deputy chief minister, Bung Moktar Radin has apologised for dashing his party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s hopes of seeing an Umno chief minister in the state.
He also signalled that Umno was unhappy to “take a step back” but would be “preparing” for the future.
In a statement today, Bung exclusively thanked the BN machinery for helping the coalition win 14 of the 32 contested seats in the face of “various obstacles coupled with opposition from various parties”.
“As the Sabah Umno chief, I will conduct a post mortem to find out the reasons why BN lost several seats. We will make improvements to ensure BN will recapture those seats in the next state election.
“I apologise to the president (Zahid) because his and our friends’ hopes and dreams of wanting me or a Sabah Umno representative to become the chief minister did not materialise.
“Securing the chief minister post was indeed Sabah Umno’s dream but we are aware of and regret how we have won just 14 seats, and this makes it hard for Sabah Umno to claim the post,” he said.
The chief minister position was a contested issue between Umno and Bersatu.
Early on in the Sabah election campaign, Zahid had already signalled that he wanted a BN chief minister should the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) coalition win.
After GRS claimed victory in Saturday’s election, component parties from BN, Perikatan Nasional (PN) and PBS were plunged into intense discussions over who would take the top post.
Zahid insisted that the role be given to Umno as it was the party that won the most number of seats in the coalition.
However, PN was the biggest sub-coalition within GRS with 17 seats won by Bersatu and Star.
Sabah Bersatu chief Hajiji Mohd Noor was eventually sworn in as the chief minister on Tuesday, three days after GRS won the election.
Zahid then lamented how Bung was pressured into accepting a compromise to become deputy chief minister instead.
Stop making things worse
Bung also called on those blaming party leaders for Umno’s current situation in Sabah, to stop doing so.
“We want to clarify the situation, not aggravate our grief over the results of the recent state election,” he said without naming names.
Former Umno member Lokman Adam recently accused Zahid of being “weak” and “bowing” to Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin after Umno lost out on the chief minister post.
Meanwhile, Bung hinted that Umno was unhappy but working to rebuild itself.
“Sabah Umno has felt the grief and pain. We are taking a step back not in defeat, but we are ready to take a big step forward,” he said cryptically.
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