Up against BN and PBS, Tandek indie applies to join Star

SABAH POLLS | With less than two days of campaigning to go, independent candidate for Tandek Lasiah @ Anita Baranting has applied to join Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku Rakyat (Star).

In a ceremony in Kota Marudu this afternoon, she presented her application form to Star president Jeffrey Kitingan.

Regardless of whether she is accepted into the party, Baranting will remain as an independent candidate on the ballot paper as per her nomination details.

Should Star accept her, this means the party will effectively clash with BN’s PBRS and PBS in Tandek.

Star, BN and PBS are all part of the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah alliance.

Read more: Sabah Decides 2020: Making sense of the players, parties and battles

Two days ago, PBS and Star had seemingly come to a truce of sorts where the former promised to not campaign against Kitingan’s side in two seats. In return, Star assured that two independent candidates would back PBS in another two seats.

However, hours after the truce, Star accepted an independent candidate in Inanam and now clashes with PBS there.

Read more: The who's who is the Sabah 2020 election

Three parties in two years?

In GE14, Baranting won Tandek under a BN-PBS ticket but defected to Warisan in 2019.

In July this year, she joined former chief minister Musa Aman in staging a failed coup against the Warisan government.

Despite being the incumbent, she was not picked by any major party for the snap election and contested as an independent before applying to join Star today.

Aside from Baranting, Star announced this afternoon that it had also picked up some 3,527 new members formerly from Upko, PBS and Warisan.

It added that this led to the dissolution of PBS and Upko’s Tandek divisions.

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