Bumburing, Lajim exit plan aborted again

Raymond Tombung

Potential defectors Wilfred Bumburing and Lajim Ukin are 'playing tarik tali' with the BN leadership in view of the current political scenario in Sabah.

KOTA KINABALU: Plans to enable Upko deputy president Wilfred Mojilip Bumburing and Umno warlord Lajim Ukin to announce their exit from Barisan Nasional have been aborted.

Senior PKR leaders and the organising officials of the gatherings on July 15 in Beaufort (for Lajim) and in Tuaran (for Bumburing) have confirmed that the planned jump by Bumburing and Lajim has been “suddenly aborted, or postponed”.

The development has heightened curiosity amongst observers.

Senior PKR leaders, who are disheartened by the turn of events, were given varied reasons for the cancellation of Bumburing’s formal announcement to ditch BN.

One source said Bumburing is blaming former Tuaran MP Kalakau Untol for arranging the gathering and announcement while he was not fully prepared to do so.

Kalakau, who has been Bumburing’s ardent supporter in his campaign outings in Amanah, is known to be in serious need of Bumburing in PKR, especially in the Tuaran division, to raise his stakes and leverage against the party’s divisional head, Ansari Abdullah.

Kalakau has been at loggerheads with Ansari since the last party election during which Kalakau sided with Edward Linggu, who contested against Ansari for the top post.

Linggu has since joined Jeffrey Kitingan’s State Reform Party (STAR) and is now the head of Tuaran STAR division.

Another source said that Bumburing’s lame excuse is that he has to wait for Lajim who has decided to go for his Haj. And that was the reason for the new provisional date of “end of August”.

Bumburing’s games

But a more credible reason is one given by a senior STAR leader who surmised that Bumburing and Lajim “postponed” their move because of their “tarik tali” (string-pulling) game with the BN leadership, even with Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

The STAR leader, who prefers to remain anonymous, believes that the two potential defectors must have already been contacted by senior BN leaders for a negotiation to remain in BN, knowing the disastrous effect for the BN if the two jumped to the opposition.

“This is all a shadow play in its classic form,” said the STAR’s divisional chief.

Still another political analyst said that since Bernard Dompok has made known his intention to resign as Upko’s president, Bumburing may see this as an opportunity for him to take over the party’s reins and continue with assured advantages in BN.

This observation is confirmed by a Tuaran PKR member who told FMT that Bumburing is still the chairman of Sabah Softwood Sdn Bhd, which, since his chairmanship many years ago, had enhanced its assets to RM120 million.

“A chairman’s position for such a well-heeled state agency would be too much to let go,” said the observer who is aligned to Kalakau’s group in Tuaran PKR.

He also said that the planned exodus to be led by Bumburing from Upko alone was quite massive, involving senior Upko leaders from 19 divisions, including Senator Maijol Mahap (whose senatorship will expire in December) and Upko supreme council member and former Labuk assemblyman, Tan Yong Gee.

This, he explains, would definitely entail intense demands for candidacies in the next general election as well as promises for positions in the party.

“It is possible that many of the demands have not been met yet by PKR supremo Anwar Ibrahim. Hence, the so-called postponement,” he said.

Bumburing a threat to Ansari

But more seriously, he said that Bumburing and Lajim’s strategy in joining PKR was to come in such a massive number that they would overwhelm the current crop of PKR state leaders.

“The aim is to take over as party candidates in place of those already identified to contest as well as to take over party positions at the state-level and divisional leaderships.

“This had caused many of the present state leaders, especially those aligned to Ansari, to feel agitated and threatened.

“In fact, much rumbling had began to be heard in the party’s rank and files as soon as the planned influx of a huge number of Upko and Umno leaders and their followers started spreading in the political grapevine.”

At the moment, Ansari is in control of the majority of the divisional leaders.

Knowing that the drama is still unfolding, whatever happens next is anybody’s guess.

But as far as the PKR leaders in the Peninsula and Sabah are concerned, the mood appears to be one of deep disappointment over a potentially explosive event that turned out to be an anti-climax.