Borneo's Yong gets the Endorsement!

OK, I just received the sms news alert from The Star, Malaysia's leading English tabloid daily, after waiting for 2 hours.

The answer is: YES, Yong managed to get the SAPP supreme council's endorsement on the 'bombshell' dropped by him 2 days ago. But the meeting made no decision on the party's position in BN, Malaysia's ruling coalition.

What are the implications? What would be BN's next move? What is the likely scenario now? These are immediate questions that play in the mind of those who care, especially SAPP or Yong sympathtisers.

My guess is that, based on the tone of the BN supreme council's statement last night, and now that the SAPP has made its stand, the BN will have no choice but to finally sack SAPP from the 14-member coalition, reducing it to 13. This is, in the least, to serve as a lesson on other component parties.

"SAPP is smart. It does not want to quit BN on its own; least Sabahans will call it 'frog', a term which may not go down well with voters.

"On the other hand, SAPP wants BN to sack it so that it will gain Sabahans' sympathy and become a hero or even a 'martyr'. Yong is going for the long term. He is already looking at the next election which may be sooner than expected.

"Any sacking of a BN party from Sabah may even have an effect beneficial to the opposition in general. De facto opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim would certainly welcome that with open arms," a political analyst pointed out.

Well, BN, the ball is back at your feet.

(Note: I expect another BN supreme council meeting, probably this weekend, to discuss this latest development. Meanwhile, it is not immediately known how many of the 33 SAPP supreme council present at the meeting supported the decision. And if anybody objected, whether party deputy president Raymond Tan was one of them. The 2 absentees were also deputy presidents, lawmakers Eric Majimbun and Liew Teck Chan who are both overseas on official duty.)