He claimed the latter’s speech was taken out of context.
He said Shafie was depicted as insulting Rela members when he was just stating the facts about the “volunteers not being weapon-trained”.
“What Shafie was saying is basically they (Rela) should be weaponised before you send them to the Eastern Sabah Security Zone (Esszone),” Leiking said.
He said the video that purportedly showed his party president saying Rela were only good at directing traffic and crowd control was edited.
“He actually said the Rela members were not trained to handle weapons. Why are you then sending them to an almost war-like zone?
“But the main issue Shafie wanted to raise was the army battalion that the government promised to send to these areas … where are they now?
“How can the government forget it promised to deliver the battalion and instead brought in the Rela volunteers?
“How do you send a team that is not weaponised and, as an after thought, state they will be weaponised?
“You spend millions training actual combatants like in the army and navy. Why do you send in Rela members?”
Kalabakan Rela liaison chief Saad Razak lodged a police report in Tawau yesterday, alleging Shafie had insulted Rela and demanded an apology from him.
Saad said Shafie’s comments that Rela members were only good for directing traffic and crowd control during events had hurt the feelings of the men and women who served in Rela.
“It is not right to say we don’t know how to handle firearms. Many of us have gone through months of training to be proficient in handling firearms,” he told FMT.
Furthermore, he said the police report was necessary because Shafie had implied in the video that Rela members would be transferred to other districts for a long period of time, thus turning them into postal voters.
Such a notion, he said, is untrue because Rela members, being volunteers, will never be told to move to other districts.
“We stay in our own place. We are private citizens and if our service is required in any particular district, only members in that district will be called. There is also no compulsion to serve,” he said.
Shafie has not responded yet to the police report.
Leiking said Warisan is not ruffled by the many allegations levelled against the party this past week but is instead focused on serving the people of Sabah.
He said the other accusation hurled at the party was that it was a proxy of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s party PPBM and a stooge to Peninsular Malaysia-based parties.
“It doesn’t affect us. We don’t have to answer them (over and over again). Because the minute we do, then we’ll become tired of replying.
“We must be quite popular that people want to have a go at us. But we want to just continue doing our job and don’t get distracted.
“We know our reach and where we’re going.”
Warisan was labelled a proxy for Mahathir by Sabah Progressive Party president Yong Teck Lee. Gabungan Sabah chairman Mohd Noor Mansoor, on the other hand, said Warisan had burned its bridges with Gabungan when it started to attack other opposition leaders in Sabah.
Leiking said “there was never any bridge in the first place”.
“And we’re not a stooge for Malayan parties. How can we be a stooge?
“If we were a stooge to Mahathir or Malaya, then what is PKR and DAP?”
Leiking said the attacks were probably signs of concern from the other parties that Warisan had a better “pull factor” than them.
“We may be able to capture the imagination of even more people. And they’re concerned they are not part of it. We can work with some parties, not all, because we have our reasons.
“We’ve been saying we can work with Pakatan Harapan and Parti Cinta Sabah,” he said.
Leiking also took aim at Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (STAR) head Jeffrey Kitingan who questioned Shafie’s sudden change of stance on Mahathir.
“Question is, what is Jeffrey’s game plan? Nobody has asked that question. Because if you don’t like Mahathir then the only choice you have left is (Prime Minister) Najib (Razak).
“Why aren’t you supporting them (PH) to finish off Najib in Peninsular Malaysia?
“For us, we’ve chosen sides. We will make sure to tell our friends to support PH in Semenanjung (peninsula) but that doesn’t mean we are joining them. We will converge our forces but will not join the pact,” Leiking said.
Shafie’s ‘incompetent’ comment makes Rela member file report