Bung Moktar denies releasing statement Musa not in UMNO candidate list

He said the statement mentioned in the report was false, and sought to cause damage to UMNO as well as deliberately pit him against Musa, who is also the Sungai Sibuga state assemblyman and only incumbent in the Sabah State Assembly from UMNO.

"That (the statement) is fake news and not from me. I have never made such a baseless statement. That is a false statement that was deliberately created to pit me against Tan Sri Musa and damage UMNO...(these are) the actions of UMNO's irresponsible enemies who want to weaken UMNO in whatever way possible," he told Bernama here today.

A local news report today quoted Bung Moktar as saying: "The only way to resolve the political crisis in UMNO is to remove (Tan Sri) Musa Aman from the list of UMNO candidates in the Sabah PRN."

The report also claimed that UMNO had nothing to do with Sabah's political crisis because Musa acted on his own will to overthrow the state government.

BUNG-MUSA 2 (LAST) KOTA KINABALU

Meanwhile, Bung Moktar also denied the news portal's report, which quoted him as saying that the Federal government could plan for Sabah's development, and the task would be carried out by the Federal government's agencies in Sabah in the event UMNO succeeded in capturing the state.

Bung Moktar refuted making such a statement saying it was deliberately twisted. "That is fake news, I never said that. What I explained was about one of our (Sabah UMNO) new offers (in the election) is that development projects in Sabah will be implemented by the state of Sabah. (The statement) was twisted," he said.

On Wednesday, Musa claimed to have obtained a simple majority to form a new state government through a coalition of several parties in Sabah. Following the political development, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal announced the dissolution of the Sabah State Assembly after receiving consent from the state's Yang Dipertua Negeri Tun Juhar Mahiruddin to pave the way for the state election to be held within 60 days.

A few hours later, Musa again came forward claiming to have a simple majority of 33 assemblymen out of 65 to form a new government without having to go through the election process, saying he had submitted the letters of support from all the assemblymen to Tun Juhar via his lawyer.