KOTA KINABALU: Sabah-based Warisan has unanimously decided to spread its wings to the peninsula, party leader Shafie Apdal said today.
The party will start with Johor and Selangor, where there are high concentrations of Sabahans, to start its divisions and branches, he added.
The party would look into serving the people in the peninsula, particularly the 300,000 or so Sabahans who work and live in West Malaysia. “But we won’t go to all the areas there, only where there are many Sabahans,” he said.
Warisan was founded by Shafie in October 2016, a few months after he left Umno, resigning as vice-president in a dispute over the leadership of Najib Razak as party leader and prime minister over the 1Malaysia Development Bhd controversy.
Shafie said the Warisan constitution does not prevent the party from having a national presence, and there would be no need to change the party name or symbol.
“If peninsula parties can set foot here, why can’t Warisan do so in the peninsula?,” he said at the party’s annual convention today. “There’s nothing unusual about it.” He said PBS had previously set up in Penang and Upko in Perak.
Asked if opposition partners have objected to Warisan’s expansion, Shafie said the contrary happened. “They are actually asking, since before, why Warisan has not expanded to the peninsula,” he said.
Warisan secretary-general Loretto Padua Jr had said earlier today that the party’s theme of unity would catch on in West Malaysia. “We are confident with what we have been saying and holding on to all this while, which is unity — let Sabah show them the way,” he said.