DAP open to working with Warisan, but not begging: Loke

KOTA KINABALU – While DAP is open to working with Warisan, it is not pleading for collaboration, DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke asserted today.

He said the party is ever ready to reach out to and meet with Warisan’s president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal, but he does not want it to seem that DAP is begging to work with the Sabah-based party.

“Any meeting must be based on mutual respect. As the new secretary-general and someone younger than him (Shafie), I can show him respect by paying him a visit, but this must not be seen by his people that we are begging to cooperate.

“We are not here to beg to work with other people, but we are open to working together for the betterment of Sabah and Malaysia,” Loke said at a press conference during the opening of the new Sabah DAP headquarters in Damai here today.

He said he is ready to meet with Shafie anytime, anywhere, even at Shafie’s house.

“Though the relationship between Warisan and DAP has gone through a few years of ups and downs, we hope that everyone can be open-minded and rational in terms of cooperation. The leaders must be magnanimous,” he said.

Loke said that while DAP is open to negotiating with other parties that share the same objectives and values, the minimum condition is that it wants to retain its three federal seats in Sabah: Tenom, Sandakan, and Kota Kinabalu.

In late March, Warisan vice-president Datuk Junz Wong had claimed that there is tension between Warisan and DAP due to the latter’s betrayal of the opposition cause.

He pointed to DAP and other components of Pakatan Harapan signing a memorandum of understanding with the Umno-led federal government.

“After the MoU was inked, PH was given access to approximately RM166.7 million in direct grants and RM178 million in project funds.

“Why did PH keep quiet about these hundreds of millions?” Wong asked. – The Vibes, June 4, 2022