Mohd Shafie denies Warisan 'shut its door', wants to strengthen party first

KOTA KINABALU - Warisan Sabah President Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal denies that he had 'closed the door' to work with other parties.

Instead, he reiterated that he wanted to strengthen Warisan first before collaborating with any other parties.

"We will see (on cooperation with other parties), I'm not saying that we will move on our own or have a pact. We want to strengthen the party first, (and) we have our own assessment.

"I am friends with everyone, with the people of DAP and PKR. I cannot close my door,” he said when met by reporters after launching Warisan Care at the party’s headquarters in Kolombong, here.

He said this when asked whether Warisan would move solo in Sabah for the next General Election (GE).

Shafie added that cooperation between political parties must be done, especially when one party became the state government while another party became the government at the Federal level, but it should be based on smart collaboration.

"Like in Sabah became the (state) government, we must cooperate with the Peninsula (Federal) because we are in one country, but we must be smart to detail out the type of cooperation and with whom we want to cooperate," he said.

Asked to comment further on the direction of cooperation with the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda), he said that Muda should also strengthen their party first.

“From the beginning, I informed Muda President Syed Saddiq that when I launched my party in the peninsular before Muda was launched, then we signed a memorandum but it did not go smoothly.

"I spoke to Saddiq yesterday, I will strengthen my party and he should strengthen his party,” he said.