Will declaration by two SAPP MPs of no-confidence in Abdullah as Prime Minister trigger support from other BN MPs in Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia or will the incipient revolt by disaffected BN MPs be crushed with SAPP expelled by BN with the engineering of a SAPP Baru

Following the bombshell by Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president Yong Teck Lee yesterday announcing that its two MPs Dr. Chua Soon Bui (Tawau) and Eric Enchin Majimbun (Sepanggar) would move a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, many questions are swirling for answer, including whether it is possible for a no confidence motion to be moved in Parliament on Monday when it looks procedurally impossible as up to yesterday no such notice of motion had been submitted to Parliament.

In fact, although a proper motion of no confidence has not been submitted to date to Parliament, it is not impossible to duplicate a no confidence vote in Parliament on the Barisan Nasional government on Monday.

Whether a no confidence motion could be moved, debated and voted upon in Parliament on Monday, however academic it appears, is however not the foremost question created by Yong Teck Lee’s announcement yesterday.

The most important question from the SAPP action, which has dealt another mortal blow on the Barisan Nasional government after the March 8 “political tsunami”, is:

Will the declaration by the two SAPP MPs of no-confidence in Abdullah as Prime Minister trigger support from other BN MPs in Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia or will the incipient revolt by disaffected BN MPs be crushed with SAPP expelled by BN today with the engineering of a SAPP Baru?

The Barisan Nasional supreme council will be holding an emergency meeting in 90 minutes’ time at 2.30 pm over Yong Teck Lee’s shock announcement yesterday.

Even if SAPP is expelled from Barisan Nasional and a SAPP Baru engineered from SAPP elements who dissociate themselves from Yong Teck Lee’s action, and the incipient revolt of the other disaffected BN MPs from Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia snuffed out with a “regime of white terror” by a show of power and intimidation, the Barisan Nasional government will only further alienate itself from the support and sympathy of the people of Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia by ignoring the long-standing popular grievances of Malaysians all over the country.

* Lim Kit Siang,  DAP Parliamentary leader & MP for Ipoh Timor