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Kota Kinabalu: Former Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee disputed an opinion of Emeritus Prof. Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi of the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya that Datuk Seri Panglima Shafie Apdal was a “popularly elected” Chief Minister of Sabah who was disposed off in 2020.

Yong was referring to the Daily Express report “More symbolic than substantial” published on Jan 27.

He asserted his view that, “For the record, the (illegal) Chief Minister who was removed in 2020 was never ‘popularly elected’.

“He became Chief Minister in May 2018 after defecting YBs from the then victorious BN jumped to his party, whose federal alliance had just formed the Federal Government (in May 2018).

“In actual fact, the Chief Minister who was popularly elected with a simple majority of the Sabah Legislative Assembly in 2018, but removed, was Tan Sri Musa Aman. I hope the above facts can be put on the record,” Yong insisted. Ironically, Prof. Dr Shad Saleem was speaking at a Wisdom Foundation webinar headed by Datuk Seri Panglima Wilfred Matius Tangau whose party was responsible for choosing to defect to help Shafie to form its Warisan-led coalition government with PH parties.