Sabah Progressive Party raised the tempo in their ‘battle' with Barisan Nasional by removing the coalition's flags and logo from the party headquarters in Kota Kinabalu today.

And when asked if this act of removing the BN flags and logo was an indication that the party was pulling out of the coalition, its president Yong Teck Lee conveniently pushed that issue to BN to decide.

He said that it was up to BN to make their stand clear if the party was in or out of the national coalition.

sapp remove bn logo 200808 yong poster "You have to ask Barisan leadership if we are in or out. We have not been invited to three BN supreme council meetings and two management meetings," he said today.

Earlier he had unveiled the party's "Malaysia 1963" billboard at the headquarters.

Yong said that the question of Sapp's position in the BN could only be answered by its chairman Abdullah Ahmad Badawi or his deputy Najib Abdul Razak.

Yong's party has been in trouble with the ruling coalition for breaking ranks by calling for a motion of no confidence against Abdullah.

Although the party had said that its two MPs would either move for such a motion in the Parliament or support one if moved by others, nothing like that has happened todate.

The party continues to maintain that it has lost confidence against the prime minister, a stand which resulted in the BN issuing it with a show cause letter asking it why it should not be sacked from the coalition.

The party has responded to the letter and Najib had said that the matter will be decided after the Permatang Pauh by-election on Aug 26.

It is 45 years of National Day

On the party's "Malaysia 1963" billboard, Yong said that it was aimed chiefly to point out to the government and the people that that Malaysia should be celebrating 45 years of formation of Federation of Malaysia and not 51 years which is historically erroneous.

"We call on academicians, historians, civil servants and our political leaders to speak up in the interests of history and true facts so that the government will respect history and truth," he urged.

sapp remove bn logo 200808 outside He noted that for 45 years, the nation has been struggling with the idea whether the national day should be celebrated starting from 1957 (when Malaya achieved independence) or 1963 (when Malaysia was formed after the Malaysia Agreement with the United Kingdom, Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak).

He pointed out that both Sabah and Malaya achieved independence on Aug 31 but on different years; Malaya in 1957 and Sabah in 1963.

On Sept 16, 1963, Malaysia was officially formed and the new Malaysia flag with 14 stripes of red and white and the 14-pointed star was raised for the first time in Malaysia.

Yong said that at one of the BN supreme council meetings last year (2007 being 50 years after Malaya achieved independence), this was debated again, mainly between the Upko president who favoured 1963 and an Umno leader who insisted on 1957.

"As we all know, the federal government defied historical truth and went ahead to declare the 50th Hari Kebangsaan for Malaysia, thereby using 1957.

"Today, we see that the authorities still insist on using the historically erroneous date of 1957 for Hari Kebangsaan.

"What saddens the people is that even the Sabah government has mistakenly or obediently adopted the 1957 date by declaring this year's (2008) Hari Kebangsaan as 51st rather than 45th.

"We note that Sarawak has done the right thing by celebrating the 45th Hari Kebangsaan and not the 51st Hari Kebangsaan.