By: JOE FERNANDEZ
IT’S THAT silly season again when everyone in Sabah, except perhaps Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) President Joseph Pairin Kitingan, wants to be Chief Minister of what the World Bank declared late last year as “The Poorest State In Malaysia”.
Pairin had been Chief Minister for an unprecedented four terms from 1985 to early 1994, the last term for only a month, and the first for a year.
It looks suspiciously like that time in early 1994 when then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced that the Sabah Chief Minister’s post would be rotated every two years among Barisan Nasional component parties.
Now voices are being heard again that the Sabah Chief Minister’s post must be rotated, as agreed before, but every five years. The proponents are not saying whether the post should be confined to Umno or be opened up to all BN component parties.
The two-year rotation formula was scrapped when Musa Aman became Chief Minister in 2003. There were expectations then that he would step down in 2008, that is, after five years but he has continued in the post until now. Therein lies the source of dissatisfaction in the state’s politics.
Members of the United Sabah National Organisation (Usno), which made way for Umno’s entry into Sabah just after the 1990 general election, is in the forefront of demands that the Chief Minister’s post be rotated but every five years.
Usno activist Abdul Razak Abdul Salam has set up the Movement for Change Sabah (MoCS), an NGO, to meet Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak on the issue.
Abdul Razak also wants to discuss the issue of re-registering Usno which was deregistered not long after its members joined Umno en bloc. Ex-Usno members have since been making repeated attempts to re-register the party.
Before Abdul Razak went public, most of the debate on the Sabah Chief Minister’s post has been behind closed doors and was dominated mainly by three Umno veterans, namely Sabah State Legislative Assembly Speaker Salleh Keruak, a former chief minister, Federal Rural and Regional Development Minister Shafie Apdal and Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia. Pandikar, an Irranun, dissolved the Dusun-based Angkatan Keadilan Rakyat (Akar) in 2001 and took his members en masse into Umno. Akar, a PBS breakaway, was formed in 1989.
Karim Ghani, an Indian-Dusun who brought Umno to Sabah and was sacked by Usno as a result, joined PKR late last year, citing that the post of Sabah Umno leader was not democratically elected ‘as promised by the national leadership’. This, according to Karim, would allow for a regular change of the chief minister, assuming that the post continues to be held by Umno.
Pantai Manis state assemblyperson Abdul Rahim Ismail and another Brunei Malay, Bongawan state assemblyperson Karim Bujang, are other perennial critics.
More brickbats than bouquets
Liberal Demoratic Party President Chong Kah Kiat, 62, was the last Chief Minister (2001-2003) under the two-year rotation formula. Musa, a Dusun-Pathan who is the current chief minister, succeeded him.
Eight years later, Musa remains strong in the saddle despite more brickbats than bouquets being thrown at him. Pairin and PBS, which re-joined BN during Chong’s tenure, remain his strongest allies.
Chong proposed that the two-year rotation formula be scrapped and that Umno, as the biggest component, hold the post. He did not comment then on suggestions that the rotation formula be continued every five years but confined, as some wanted, to Umno.
Pairin readily agreed with Chong’s suggestion that the two-year rotation formula be scrapped. PBS, however, did not publicly comment on the suggestion that the chief minister’s post be permanently held by Umno. Insiders say that this is because Umno is not the biggest BN component through elections but by reserving the biggest chunk of the seats for itself under a pre-election formula to take on the opposition one-to-one.
Chong may have spoken up too early since he appears to have had cause for regret. The LDP, now under Federal Deputy Minister VK Liew, has been virtually on the warpath against Musa ever since Chong resigned from the state cabinet in April 2007, citing ‘a matter of principle’. Chong was then Deputy Chief Minister and State Environment, Tourism and Culture Minister. LDP Deputy President, Chin Su Phin even declared in recent months that the party could no longer work with Musa.
Suspicions are rife that the LDP is in cahoots with the three Sabah Umno veterans. The party has denied this and swears that it has its own long list of grievances as a BN component member. LDP has so far not raised the issue of reviving the rotation of the Sabah Chief Minister’s post although it had made no secret of its desire to see Musa’s back as soon as possible.
Shafie, a Suluk, denied on May 16 that he had problems in Umno Sabah and pointed out that he won the party’s national Vice-Presidency with its support. His principle, he claimed, was “to work for the people and not himself”.
Salleh, a Banjar-Bajau, likewise was in the news recently when he criticised all those who were working to oust the present state government.
It’s unlikely that Najib would decide on any change of the state leadership before the next general election. Musa, according to Umno insiders, is the best candidate to lead the BN into the battle for the next polls.
Najib may not want to upset the apple cart in Sabah too much as evident from his silence on Sarawak where Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud will lead the coalition at the next general election. Taib can now be expected to go after the general election although he had earlier indicated to Najib that he would step down after the state election on April 16.
Humble pie
There are no parallels between Taib, who has been in power over 30 years, and Musa who has spoken out against factionalism in Umno.
The opposition in Sarawak is expected to do well at the next general election mainly as a result of Taib going back on his promise to quit after April 16. Indications are that anything between seven and 10 parliamentary seats in Sarawak will fall to the opposition. Taib’s exit before the general election will financially cripple the state coalition but will lessen the opposition haul.
In Sabah, the fledging opposition is much weaker and is yet to get its act together as evident from the in-fighting within PKR in the state. As during the Sarawak state polls, the ambitious PKR is expected to be the spoiler which will deny the opposition in Sabah the opportunity to take on the BN in straight fights.
If PKR could be persuaded to come to its senses and eat humble pie in Sabah, anything up to half the state seats could fall to the opposition. In that case, the Sabah BN would need strong leadership to retain its hold on power in the state.
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