Information on Kitingan Family
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Information on Kitingan Family |
 
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The PBRS congress was held on 28/29 January 2002, which saw more controversy after a week of news breaking headlines on the tense war between Joseph Kurup and Jeffrey Kitingan. After Dr. Jeffrey had revealed his intention to challenge Kurup for the presidency, Kurup abused his power by suspending Jeffrey's membership in PBRS and barring Jeffrey from attending the Congress, an action clearly seen as a desperate act to prevent Jeffrey from contesting him. Jeffrey had become the obvious president in waiting since joining the party as it was with such intention that Dr. Jeffrey had persuaded 5 other assemblymen to leave PBS and join PBRS, an intention not lost to Kurup but which he secretly was hoping would not happen. When the rotation of the chief minister's post was given to the Chong Kah Kiat, a Chinese instead of to Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, due to the tussle among the KadazanDusun, Jeffrey had the most to lose and in the end, it was Joseph Kurup ( who also wanted to be chief minister) had the most to gain and the least to lose. He ended up being appointed a minister in Chong Kah Kiat's cabinet. Joseph Kurup even since PBS time, had always been a loner and tended to lose support than gain it which he knew and from the outset had tried to push through his hope that there would be no contest for the top two posts in the party. This however was never discussed openly nor was there any agreement to that effect. In fact, there was a tacit instruction for his administrative side to delay the registration of new members from new branches set up by Dr. Jeffrey which were mushrooming all over the state, to Kurup's chagrin. Dr. Jeffrey had travelled far and wide and did much PR work among the old and new members and therefore not suprisingly obtained nominations for the presidency from many divisions. With such an avalanche of support, Kurup would have been crushed and he knew it and therefore decided to act on his own by suspending Jeffrey's membership and justifying it with many unfounded allegations. Dr. Jeffrey had anticipated this and prepared to meet the challenge by applying to the court to allow him to attend the congress. Kurup could not contain his anger when Jeffrey actually did turn up for the congress on the second day and called the police to remove Jeffrey from the congress. Dr. Jeffrey coolly accepted the humiliation and watched the proceedings from a separate room through a glass window. There was a lot of commotion in the main meeting hall as delegates were not in favour of the choice of permanent chairman (Datuk Justin Miol) who was put up by Kurup at the supreme council meeting. The tussle for congress chairman was eventually won by Datuk Victor Lim, who then proceeded with the motion from the delegates of lifting of suspension of Dr. Jeffrey, and the election part of the congress in which Datuk Dr. Jeffrey was elected as president unchallenged. When Datuk Joseph Kurup returned later, he was told that he had lost his presidency! Not to be outdone, Kurup tried to rally his supporters and proceeded with their own 'congress' the third day when it had actually ended the second day, and had himself 'elected' as 'president'. Both have appointed their separate supreme council members which include some common members, and each have a separate headquaters. While Kurup operates from the old office, Dr. Jeffrey moved to his business premises a few blocks from Kurup's office. At present, the two sides have presented their cases to the ROS, the chief minister and the lawyers for a possible solution. (11/2/2002) |
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