KOTA KINABALU, Aug 29 — The Sabah branch of Muafakat Nasional (MN) has decided to disband, two days ahead of the state PAS convention, citing dissatisfaction and loss of confidence in the leadership for failure to treat the state as equals.

Sabah MN protem chairman Jismit Japong said that he and 32 members of the committee and leaders felt sidelined by the treatment received from its national leaders including chairman Tan Sri Annuar Musa.

"After several incidents we had a meeting last night and unanimously decided to resign from our positions en masse and disband with immediate effect.

"We cannot accept the disrespect and being sidelined after working to set up MN here in the last two years,” said Jismit, adding that he has not informed Annuar of the matter but will formally issue their resignation in the next 14 days.

During a press conference, Jismit said that Annuar was due for a visit to Sabah today for the PAS convention where they were holding a dinner where MN Sabah was invited.

"As the Sabah branch, we felt that we should have been given the responsibility of organising the event and hosting them, but instead we were invited, and told to invite two appointed representatives into the Supreme Council who we are not aware of.

"We were extremely offended by this,” he said.

Annuar is currently PAS’s election director.

The original MN was a short-lived political alliance between PAS and Umno, which ended in December 2022.

Subsequently, MN the NGO was formed, with Annuar as its chairman.

Jismit said that there have been no discussions between the national and state division on the appointment nor was there any consultation on the matter.

"These two years we have been busy setting up MN here because we believed in its cause of unity but whenever we ask for allocation to help victims of natural disasters, we don’t even receive a reply. So we used our own funds in the end,” he said.

"There is no loss in us resigning anyway. It’s not like we gained anything from them, in fact we have been using our own funds to run events and charity all this while. Don’t think we are profiting in any way,” he said.

Jismit said that national organisations who expand to the state with their own agenda to take advantage of the state but did not give due respect was the reason why Sabahans were so wary of West Malaysians.

"We won’t just bow down and accept anything you say,” he said.

Jismit said that the MN organisation here has about 10,000 members all over the state and was friendly to any political organisation as they were apolitical.

"Moving forwards, we will have another NGO, and continue our work,” he said.

Jismit said they did have political ambitions and was in the midst of setting up their own party — Parti Tempatan Rakyat Sabah — which has yet to be approved by the Registrar of Societies.

"If we get to participate in the election, our target is to go solo but we are also open to cooperating with any parties,” he said.