STAR sees 13th GE as unfinished business
The general election will help settle once and for all how Sabahans will recapture the magical years of the PBS government.
One unknown still in this emerging scenario, unfortunately for the opposition, is the Peninsular Malaysia-based PKR which, like Umno, is after seats in Sabah after having reached a dead-end on the other side of the South China Sea. It intends to battle STAR in 52 of the 54 state seats the latter is eyeing. PAS, a Pakatan member like PKR, will vie with STAR for the remaining two token seats.
Joe Fernandez, Free Malaysia Today
The 11th and 12th general elections, in 2004 and 2008 respectively, following the return of Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) to the Barisan Nasional (BN) in 2002, were trial runs by local “Unity is Duty” advocates.
These advocates are now gearing up for the forthcoming 13th general election, widely expected between May this year and the next if not later.
One group of independents, the hardcore nationalists now with STAR supremo Jeffrey Kitingan who is flogging the Unity is Duty mantra, did extremely well in retrospect in seven state seats in 2004 and 2008 despite multi-cornered fights.
However, they wrested the proverbial defeat from the jaws of victory, thwarted by disunity among the opposition. The BN won by default, by the slimmest of margins and has never recovered to this day, still licking its wounds from those bruising battles. The rest is history.
The 2004 and 2008 general elections were also an admission of sorts that PBS had failed to re-absorb the four breakaway parties which were primarily responsible for the downfall of its government in 1994 although then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the prime mover behind the scene.
Akar Bersatu was dissolved and its members including Chinese were absorbed by Umno. Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), the Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) and the United PasokMomogun KadazanDusunMurut Organisation (Upko) were the four breakaways from PBS allegedly engineered by Mahathir.
Putrajaya had ostensibly concluded, at that point in time, that PBS had to go lest the state reached a point of no return and broke away, with or without UN help, from the Malaysian Federation. Jeffrey was even incarcerated for it – he was allegedly 16 hours away from a unilateral declaration of independence – under the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA) for two terms. The real reason may have been that Umno desperately wanted seats in Sabah to make up for anticipated losses in the Malay reservation areas in Peninsular Malaysia.
The general election will help settle once and for all how Sabahans will recapture the magical years of the PBS government (1985 to 1994) when they stood as a people on an equal footing with the people of Sarawak and Malaya or Peninsular Malaysia.
Magical wand
Jeffrey is in quest for the tataba, the magical wand of power wielded by his elder brother, PBS chief and then Sabah Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan.
State rights, STAR’s sacred cow in Sabah and Sarawak, indeed hinge on dealing with the very people who wrecked political unity in the former and allowed Putrajaya to federalise it in a way. Sabah is today almost a Federal Territory when it could be an equal partner of Malaya, and Sarawak, in the Malaysian Federation. The fact that Putrajaya has been unable to swallow Sarawak so far, the state being too indigestible, means that Sabah will soon recover its former autonomy.
Apparently, STAR’s strategy in Sabah come the 13th general election, is to allow the fate of the six Chinese-majority state seats to be determined by SAPP and the Peninsular Malaysia-based DAP, one of the three members in the Pakatan Rakyat national opposition alliance.
This is in line with its oft-cited “statement of principles”.
The exact details like the specific seats, although widely speculated, remain sketchy at the moment. The shift in electoral boundaries and shifting of voters, whether by design or otherwise, would have to be taken into account in the final reckoning.
The list of candidates is work in progress.
The list of parliamentary candidates would naturally have to take into account the finalisation of the state seats.
It’s not known whether SAPP, a mosquito Chinese-led party with multiracial pretensions, will be satisfied with just six state seats. The party had all along, so far, been beating the drums of war for 40 state seats.
SAPP, along with STAR and the recently-revived United Sabah National Organisation (Usno) are members of the fledging United Borneo Alliance (UBA) in Sabah. UBA also includes the Sarawak National Party (SNAP) which once ruled the state before the long arm of Putrajaya intervened and introduced the politics of race and racial polarisation to facilitate its divide-and-rule agenda.
Battle royale
STAR will reportedly field candidates in the remaining 54 state seats and hence not the entire 60 state seats where its young Turks had been raring to do battle royale with the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN).
Usno, so much a part of the state’s colourful political history but unfortunately deregistered by Putrajaya, will do battle in 19 Muslim overwhelmingly state seats – Bajau, Suluk and Barunai – under the STAR banner.
That would leave 35 state seats including 12 mixed seats with STAR proper. Dusun – including Kadazan or urban Dusun and Murut – make up 23 state seats. Interestingly, the 35 seats are part of the 40 seats that SAPP wants to contest while conceding only Sri Tanjung, already DAP-held, to the incumbent.
Jeffrey’s strategy evidently hinges on getting the support of members in three BN component parties – Umno, PBS and Upko – to help remove unpopular and deadwood incumbents if they are likely to be fielded again by those parties and/or alternatively capitalise on their dissatisfaction if they are dropped.
Besides, Usno has a score of sorts to settle with certain Umno factions which had been expected to work together with it in return for facilitating its entry into Sabah and helping it to bring about PBS’ downfall in 1994. Instead, it suffered the indignity of being unceremoniously consigned to the dustbin of history. All its subsequent efforts to re-register have been thwarted by Putrajaya as part of efforts to protect its hold on seats since acquired as part of its electoral “fixed deposit” in Sabah.
Interestingly, Usno founder Mustapha Harun signed up as a PBS member not long before he breathed his last, but at the same time, he urged his followers to help revive Usno. It’s not known how many Usno members in fact followed Mustapha into PBS.
It’s no longer possible for Usno members to work from within PBS since the party is in BN together with its nemesis Umno.This is where STAR has entered the picture to offer a way out of the dilemma facing the hardcore Usno members led by Badaruddin, Mustapha’s son.
One unknown still in this emerging scenario, unfortunately for the opposition, is the Peninsular Malaysia-based PKR which, like Umno, is after seats in Sabah after having reached a dead-end on the other side of the South China Sea. It intends to battle STAR in 52 of the 54 state seats the latter is eyeing. PAS, a Pakatan member like PKR, will vie with STAR for the remaining two token seats.
