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| Former Usno members, unhappy with Umno's short memory, are seeking to reactivate their party in time for the 13th general election. |
According to protem president Badaruddin Tun Mustapha, Usno had submitted its application to ROS Sabah on Oct 26 last year.
He said ROS Sabah had, when asked, told them that the file was now in Putrajaya.
Badaruddin said when protem vice president Abdullah Sani Abdul Salleh checked with ROS on June 28 this year, Abdullah was told that the file was now with the Home Ministry.
Fedup with the runaround, Badaruddin said they were giving the ROS and Home Ministry 14 days to respond to their official letter requesting an answer to the application.
“Failing this, our next course of action would be to ask for the Yang diPertuan Agong to step in.
“In this respect, Usno members will be handing a memorandum to the King through the Sabah Head of State,” he told a press conference in Beverly Hotel here yesterday.
Badaruddin said Usno’s protem committee during its meeting on Monday had also decided to urge the Barisan Nasional government to be transparent in its action against Usno, which he said was the party that gained independence for Sabah.
Ungrateful Umno
He said the BN government should be fair to Sabahans and allow former Usno members to reactivate the party, just like those in Peninsular Malaysia such as the Makkal Sakti, which only took about 60 days to be approved.
If the party failed to be registered by the 13th general election, Badaruddin said Usno will find other ways to use their own symbol and party name to contest.
Badaruddin, who is former Chief Minister Tun Mustapha Harun’s fourth son, said the new Usno is a party for all Malaysians unlike its predecessor.
According to him, the decision to revive the party with the same acronym of the United Sabah National Organisation (Usno) that was founded by his father was in response to the members displeasure over the non-approval of Club Usno, which they applied to be registered as an NGOs in 2006.
Badaruddin, 51, claims that the number of Club Usno members has grown to 100,000 throughout Sabah and that most of the old Usno members, particularly in the East Coast had never joined Umno.
“Usno is Usno and Umno is Umno but we are disappointed that Umno has forgotten about Usno, which brought them to Sabah,” he said of the deal which his father made that allowed the peninsula-based party to spread its wing to Sabah in 1994/1995.
Asked how confident he was that the Home Ministry would approve their application, he said: “The hope is thin but we are confident.
“If registered, Usno plans to contest all 60 state seats in the coming general election.”
Challenging Umno
On whether Usno would be aligned to BN or opposition or perhaps form a pact, he said: “We’ll cross the bridge when we get there”.
“In politics our door is always open,” said Badaruddin, who had contested in 1994 in Usukan for the PBS Plus (a pact between Usno and Parti Bersatu Sabah).
If registered as a party, Usno is expected to put up a strong challenge against Umno and other state political parties in the general elections.
“I remember a deputy chief minister said a few weeks ago that if you want to make noise, contest in the general election then we can tell who is greater.
“So I asked Yahya Hussin (deputy CM) please help us to approve our party then we can know whether Umno can beat Usno or not,” he said.
Nearly 50 members representing the various constituencies in Sabah attended the function together with some of the 13 protem committee members.
The old Usno was disbanded by Tun Mustapha following the entry of Umno into Sabah with most of its members being absorbed into the party.
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