KUALA LUMPUR: A Perikatan Nasional (PN) lawyer said the parliamentary seats won by four Sabah representatives in the 15th General Election (GE15) should be vacated after they announced their withdrawal from Bersatu yesterday.
The four members of parliament -- Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali (Papar), Khairul Firdaus Akbar Khan (Batu Sapi), Jonathan Yasin (Ranau) and Datuk Matbali Musah (Sipitang) -- contested in GE15 on the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) ticket, but were Bersatu members.
PN's head of main operations room legal team, Wan Rohimi Wan Daud, said the actions of the four MPs meet the requirements set out in Article 49A of the Federal Constitution.
Based on the provisions, he said, they must vacate their parliamentary seats because their involvement in GRS was also dropped when they announced their exit from Bersatu.
"When these four MPs declared to leave Bersatu, they are automatically no longer members of the GRS coalition as they severed the membership line. They cannot say they left Bersatu but remain in GRS because their membership (in GRS) is 'by extension' or because they were Bersatu members.
"If they quit being members of Bersatu, then they also stop being members of GRS.
"Therefore the legal operation related to the provision of Article 49A(1)(a)(i) is applicable to these four MPs.
"Hence, their membership in the House of Representatives should also be terminated," he said in a statement today.
GRS chairman Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor, who was Sabah Bersatu chief, said the decision to quit was made after taking into consideration the current political situation in the country.
Hajiji had said the group will establish a new party, but for now will collectively be members of GRS.
Earlier, Berita Harian quoted the Head of the Governance, Legislation and Management Cluster of the National Council of Professors, Professor Dr Nik Ahmad Kamal Nik Mahmood, who said the four MPs and the 15 Assemblymen need not vacate the seats.
He explained that their actions are not subject to Article 49A which came into force on Oct 5, because the four MPs contested in GE15 on GRS tickets that had already been registered, not Bersatu.
The positions of the 15 assemblymen are also not affected since the law pertaining to the ban on changing parties had not been gazetted for enforcement in Sabah, he added.