The Sabah chief minister said it was the democratic right of George Hiew and Jamawi Jaafar, both formerly of Hajiji’s Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah, to join other parties and contest the election.

“They chose to contest on a PKR ticket and it just so happened that PKR is a partner of ours in the government.

“For me, there’s no problem. That’s Sabah’s political dynamics. Both of them are PKR candidates and no longer represent Gagasan Rakyat.

“We’ve already released them. What else can be done? That’s their right and we respect it. We can’t stop them, this is democracy,” the Gagasan Rakyat president said in a statement.

Hajiji said GRS would give Hiew and Jamawi its backing since it has an electoral pact with PH.

PKR unveiled 10 candidates for the 17th Sabah state election last night, including Yamani Hafez Musa, the son of Sabah governor Musa Aman.

It also announced Hiew and Jamawi’s candidacies for the Karamunting and Melalap seats, respectively.

Hiew, a two-term assemblyman, was formerly from Warisan but joined Gagasan Rakyat in 2023. He was with DAP before joining Warisan in 2016.

Jamawi served as Kemabong assemblyman from 2018 to 2020, representing Umno.

In the 2020 state election, Umno fielded him in Melalap instead, where he lost to Peter Anthony by 1,719 votes.

In the general election two years later, he contested the Tenom parliamentary seat but lost to independent candidate Riduan Rubin by 1,108 votes. He then left Umno to join Gagasan Rakyat.