Year end visits to Sabah by Najib, Anwar
It is learned that both have scheduled their final visits to the politically volatile state on Dec 28 and Dec 29 respectively.
Luke Rintod, FMT
KOTA KINABALU: Come year-end, the country’s top two ‘rivals’ in Malaysian politics – Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and opposition supremo Anwar Ibrahim – will once again slog it out in Sabah.
It is reliably learned that both have scheduled their final visits to the politically volatile state on Dec 28 and Dec 29 respectively.
Besides wooing potential voters here, the duo will be also be fighting for the spaces in the local newspapers.
Media editors here have spoken of the “interesting” heat emanating from the political slugging and its reach to voters across the vast state of Sabah.
Sabah is equivalent to the combined size of nine smaller states in the Malayan Peninsular.
The state is frankly a logistical nightmare and poor communication in Sabah has made it favourable to politicians to get maximum coverage in local newspapers.
Anwar, it is learned, would fly in from Jakarta and will visit Kuala Penyu and possibly another area during his visit.
Najib meanwhile is expected to officiate the annual congress of a tiny Barisan Nasional (BN) component, Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS), which faces annihilation in rural town of Pensiangan in the 13th general election.
According to those in the know, Najib is also scheduled to appear in Papar.
This would be Najib’s seventh visit to Sabah this year. It is a record unsurpassed by all the previous five premiers and telling of the political situation in the peninsular.
At stake in Sabah are 26 parliamentary seats, including the sole seat in Labuan, and 60 state seats, of which the Umno/PBS-led Sabah BN controls 23 and 57 seats respectively.
Pre-Christmas visit
The last time Najib was in town was about a week ago where he went to Sandakan to officiate the annual congress of another BN minor partner, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
In Sandakan, he feted the Christian community to lunch in a bid to stop the decreasing support for BN from that community.
The community has been under extreme pressure from the Najib’s administration.
The “Alkitab” or Bible issue is still hanging, while Najib’s own Muslim groups of supporters had been pressuring him not to retract a certain edict or fatwa in as many as 10 states that bars Christians from using many Malayanised Arabic-rooted words that include Allah, bait Allah, solat, kiblat, rasul, firman Allah, kaabah and even iman.
