KOTA KINABALU: Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan) president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal today denied that the party had deviated from its original struggle by spreading its wings to Peninsular Malaysia.

He said the move had received the support of the party's supreme council (MT) and that at its annual general meeting on Dec 12, all MT and party members had backed the decision.

"The decision to expand Warisan to Peninsular Malaysia was a step to provide an alternative to all voters in Malaysia," he said in a statement here.

Yesterday, Melalap assemblyman Datuk Peter Anthony, who was also Warisan vice-president, announced that he had quit the party.

Peter, 50, also announced that he will form a new party that will forge close cooperation with the state government led by Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS).

He said that he made the decision to quit Warisan after finding that the party had gone far astray in its struggle for the rights and wellbeing of the people of Sabah when it spread its wings to the peninsula.

Commenting on Peter's move to leave the party, Mohd Shafie, who is also the Member of Parliament for Semporna, said it came as no surprise because the former had voiced his intention to do so earlier but stressed that Peter's claim that Warisan had strayed from its cause was untrue.

-- BERNAMA