A leadership crisis is brewing in the PBB youth wing

by Sebanaku Sarawak

KUCHING: Cracks in the Youth Wing of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) are getting visible each day and this would result in a leadership crisis in the youth wing if there is no interference from the party top leadership to address grievances of the youth exco members.

The differences on how to react to the statement made by the PBB President Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud that he would willingly step down if the rakyat of Sarawak no longer want him has added more sparks that could erupt a full-scale war between two factions - YB Fadillah Yusuf and Gerald Rentap Jabu in one faction and Pandi Suhaili and Abdul Aziz Adenan in the other faction - in the PBB Youth Wing.

The failure of the Youth Wing Chief YB Fadillah Yusuf, who is also the Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, to respond swiftly to the statement has caused some members of the exco to defy his ‘instruction’ – in the form of text which he sent to selected few exco members on August 26 – not to respond to the Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud’s statement.

At the same time, the wing’s secretary general Gerald Rentap Jabu was also silent and didn’t make any effort to contact any exco member from the Bumiputera wing on what to do to respond to the statement.

A group of exco members led by the wing’s vice youth chief Pandi Suhaili just could not fathom the rationale of taking the wait-and-see attitude that YB Fadillah Yusuf wanted all exco members to adopt over the matter when Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud was seen as being under tremendous pressures by ‘outsiders’ to resign.

They were wondering why their youth chief preferred to be silent and not defending the very man who had stopped the Chief Political Secretary to the Chief Minister YB Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah from contesting against him for the Youth Chief post in the party convention early this year.

To them, YB Fadillah Yusuf owed Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud a BIG favour but instead of encouraging all youth members to shout loud and clear that they still want Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud to continue leading the state and party, YB Fadillah Yusuf wanted all of them to be silent as if YB Fadillah Yusuf also wanted Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud to step down.

Pandi Suhaili and his group, which is comprising of appointed and elected exco members from the Bumiputera wing, believe that it was the duty of the wing to defend the party president at the earliest opportunity when being ‘attacked’ by the ‘outsiders’ – and not to politely sit at the background waiting for others to issue their statements before the wing to issue its own.

Pandi Suhaili and members of his group (Group of 11 – its members are Pandi Suhaili, Wan Hamzah Wan Piee, Hamzah Ibrahim, Mohd Narudin, Radin Kadri, Abdul Aziz Adenan, Morshien, Mohd Tinggal, Raymond, Datuk Safri Abdillah, Awangku Jinal) had a discussion among themselves on how to go about the matter and finally decided to take an initiative to issue a statement for the wing.

The Group of 11 entrusted Abdul Aziz Adenan to issue the wing’s official statement in his capacity as the youth wing’s Information Chief.

When the statement was published in all Malay and English local newspapers on the next day, (August 27), YB Fadillah Yusuf was surprised and upset with the exco members from the Bumiputera wing for not following his instruction to be silent on the matter.

And because of this he had to force himself to ignore his earlier ‘wait-and-see’ attitude by issuing his own statement defending the party president.

Apparently, he didn’t want to be seen by Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud to be silent on this matter despite of the fact that he intended to be silent in the first place.

However, before he issued his statement, he expressed his unhappiness to Abdul Aziz Adenan for issuing the  statement.

Abdul Aziz Adenan was taken aback with this because he thought that he and members of Group of 11 were actually doing him a BIG favour by issuing the statement.

They knew that he was VERY busy with ministerial duty in Kuala Lumpur and he might forgot to respond to the statement made by Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud.

Thus, they decided to issue the wing’s statement although YB Fadillah Yusuf and Gerald Rentap Jabu decided not to issue any statement for the wing.

Group of 11 were not happy with YB Fadillah Yusuf and Gerald Rentap Jabu for their attitude towards their efforts but this didn’t stop them from organizing many gatherings of youths all over the state to express  supports to the party president.

They were sad that their youth chief and secretary general even didn’t bother to give them even a call to query on their efforts in organizing the gatherings.

What they knew is while they were having headaches organizing gatherings of youths in many places in the state (mainly because no fund from the youth wing was provided by YB Fadillah Yusuf to them), Gerald Rentap Jabu was having a number of meetings with the PBB Batu Kawa branch chairman Datuk Ahmad Ibrahim at Hilton Kuching.

Group of 11 were upset with Gerald Rentap Jabu for able to find time to scheme with Datuk Ahmad Ibrahim but not for organizing gatherings of youths to express support to the very man whom his own father Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Alfred Jabu Numpang would unashamedly worship in the public as his “beloved leader”.

At the time when this writing is posted, Gerald Rentap Jabu has not made any statement to support his father’s “beloved leader”.

Or may be only his father 'loves' Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud while he loathes him.

Maybe only YB Fadillah Yusuf knows why Gerald Rentap Jabu is keeping silent until now when other youth members are competing against each other to express their supports to the party president.

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* Taib is to resign and his UMNO 'friends' are grinning