[UPDATED] Sabah rep Juil Nuatim quits KDM party he co-founded

KOTA KINABALU – One of the only two Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat (KDM) assemblymen in Sabah, Datuk Juil Nuatim, has confirmed today that he is leaving the party.

He said for the time being, he is an independent assemblyman who fully supports Gabungan Rakyat Sabah chairman and Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor.

“(For me) to join other parties… we will see if there is any party that can bring development to the Limbahau state constituency,” he told reporters via WhatsApp today.

Juil, who is deputy president (non-Muslim Bumiputera) in KDM, co-founded the party with president Datuk Peter Anthony in January last year, a month after they left Warisan.

Juil won the Limbahau state seat on Warisan’s ticket during the Sabah election in September 2020 and became an assemblyman for the first time.

He later said that there is no misunderstanding between him and KDM president Anthony, and that he just wanted to bring development to his constituency.

Since KDM was founded, its president has openly declared its intentions to be a component party of Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), the ruling coalition in Sabah since 2020, but the party was never officially accepted into the latter.

In January, when BN and Warisan allegedly tried to bring down the GRS-led government, Anthony and Juil purportedly backed the pact, going against GRS.

But KDM later announced it was supporting GRS again when the alleged Warisan-BN effort failed.

Juil’s announcement incidentally comes before the state assembly sitting that starts tomorrow, and in which the state-level anti-hopping bill is expected to be tabled. – The Vibes, May 21, 2023