The State Assembly was dissolved from today, Chief Minister Datuk Pairin Kitingan announced this afternoon.
He told a press conference at the state Cabinet Room at Yayasan Sabah Building that Yang Dipertua Negeri Tun Haji Mohd Adnan Robert signed the proclamation of the dissolution on Monday.
Datuk Pairin said the decision to dissolve the Assembly to pave the way for another state election was made ‘quite some time ago’.
ADVERTISEMENT
He had seen Tun Adnan and explained the tense political situation in Sabah and advised the Head of State Assembly.
(Under the State Constitution, elections must be held within 90 days upon dissolution of the Assembly).
State Assembly secretary Francis Yap said the Election Commission was notified of the dissolution this afternoon.
Datuk Pairin said his Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) government felt that it should go to the people to seek a more definite mandate so that it could carry out the task of administering the state without being obstructed by the opposition at every turn.
The PBS president said that ever since his government came into power in April last year, it had been under vicious attacks from irresponsible leaders of the opposition who refused to accept their defeat.
ADVERTISEMENT
He said they had resorted to all sorts of disruptive tactics to try to discredit and topple the democratically-elected government.
“The case brought up in the High Court challenging the legality of the government has just been concluded and the latest series of tactics to undermine our democratic system is the resignation of PBS members of the legislative Assembly, obviously engineered by these same opposition leaders with a view to capture power,” Datuk Pairin said.
“These are not the normal actions of a loyal and responsible opposition envisaged in our parliamentary system of government,” he added.
“In fact, these actions are so destructive that they can be regarded as a long series of attempted coups in an effort to overthrow the democratically-elected government by any possible means,” he said.
Datuk Pairin said that in order to get the state out of ‘this protracted and tense situation’ which had existed since March last year, the PBS leadership felt that the government should go back to the people to let them decide once again clearly who should administer the state.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Rather than we hang on as a weakened government under siege, we feel that we should go back to the people to seek a more definite mandate,” he said.
“The people are the best judge of our sincerity and our determination to administer the state as best as we can,” he added.
“With the opposition having succeeded in enticing some of our elected Assembly members to defect, the PBS’s strength in terms of seats in the House has been reduced to a level which makes the ruling party vulnerable to increasing pressure from those who pull the strings in the opposition,” he said.