Borneo Alliance to be formalized with SAPP – Jeffrey

KOTA KINABALU: The Borneo Alliance of parties and NGOs is set to be formalized soon with Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) and forthcoming political in which UBF’s Chairman, Datuk Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan will be a member.

Announcing this in a statement here, Jeffrey said that it is high time the alliance is formalized and mobilized under the structure and movement of political parties. “As a result of the continuous tea parties UBF has been holding all over Sabah, the people have been waiting very impatient for the movement to become a full-fledged political reality rather than merely an NGO,” he said. “I have been asked all the time what political vehicle will be used for the Borneo Alliance which will move the Borneo Agenda.”

He said the date for the launching of Borneo Alliance (Pakatan Borneo) will be announced later, but confirmed “It will definitely be next month.” He also said he is in a final stages of  joining a political party in which he is being offered a state leadership role.

He also confirmed that he had reached “a very close co-operation and arrangement” with SAPP’s President Datuk Yong Teck Lee on the matter and both parties are set to be the prime initial movers of the alliance.  

Restating the vision of Borneo Alliance he said that the alliance’s principle is for the Borneo states to become the combined force to decide who will form the next federal government after the coming general election.

“We must get hold of the autonomy to be kingmakers,” he said. “This means local-based parties must take charge of the two states and stand for their rights within the federation. This cannot be done if we remain under the control of Peninsular Malaysia, or peninsular-based parties.”

He said what the Borneo alliance wants is nothing drastic or radical because all it wants is the rightful reinstatement of the original concept of Malaysia. “We were promised that the Borneo states would be independent entities and the federal government would be a shared responsibility of among the four merging entities,” he stressed. “We need to create a new political and administrative system to replace the present one in which only one party is controlling all the others who are subservient.”

“This is definitely a new choice for Sabahans who now have realized that if they go by the formula of the Pakatan Rakyat, the same system will be perpetuated and we will continue to lose,” he said.