By : SELVARAJA SOMIAH
CREATING history in Sabah’s
politics, Musa Aman is once again back to the power of the state as the poll
result of the just-concluded 13th General Election of May 5 showed that he won
a landslide victory.
The UMNO and Barisan
National alliance grabbed more than two-thirds of the seats (48) in the 60
state assembly seats and 22 of the 25 Parliamentary seats. Musa Aman’s victory
is said to be due to the triumph of development, progress, and good governance.
From the very beginning, the
2013 assembly poll counting hinted that the UMNO-BN alliance would create a
history in Sabah with their new win and they proved by attracting a total of
442,493 votes for state seats and 434,522 for parliamentary seats which total
877,015 in all. The opposition, on the other hand, received only 59,862 votes
for the State seats and 287,559 votes for Parliamentary seats.
Musa Aman, received the
biggest chunk of votes with 16,637 for a state seat in Sibuga among the
coalition’s state component leaders, a majority of 11,569 votes, underscoring
the popularity of his Halatuju policy for the state’s development.
His acceptance of a renewed
term as Chief Minister also makes it the first time a Sabah Chief Minister had
broken the nine-year jinx and continued to hold the fortress, basically what I
have been saying all along.
Also as predicted, the Sabah
Progressive Party led by former chief minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee was wiped
out losing all the 41 state and eight parliamentary seats contested. Yong
himself was beaten by DAP’s Youth leader Junz Wong in Likas state seat. Apart
from Bingkor, Dr Jeffrey’s STAR candidates lost all 48 state and 21
parliamentary seats it contested. Except for the Klias state seat, Sabah UMNO
retained all its 13 parliamentary and 31 (out of 32) state seats it contested.
While many facile analyses
will attribute the electoral outcome in Sabah to factors that were marginally
relevant, the more astute of analysts will see in the turnout figures what this
election was really about. Of particular interest would be the number of first
time voters and of even greater significance the spike in the Women Voter
turnout.
It would not be exaggeration
to describe this election as the one where Women and Youth reposed their faith
overwhelmingly in Musa Aman. In the processing putting up a Firewall against
Race, Religion and every other political construct from the decades gone past
that have come to define incumbencies.
This win signifies 6 things
for Musa and Sabah:
#1 – He is a trend setter
and has established that pro-incumbency sentiment can firewall against even the
toughest of incumbencies and a 10 year run for the Chief Minister.
#2 – He is able to break
from the past, having able to discard political constructs of the past 5
decades to analyse this election. This requires a new political construct to
analyse how elections of the future will be fought as well.
#3 – He proves that
Technology can be a winner – and that is necessary to stop being apologetic for
being tech friendly.
#4 – He has sent a signal to
the Pakatan Rakyat and its extended ecosystem of Sabah Progressive Party and
Star that the cliche victimhood card as a permanent political agenda is past
its sell by date. Cynicism no longer sells.
#5 – It is reflective of
what the future can hold for Malaysia.
#6 – It shows Sabah is
kingmaker in Malaysian politics.
Between women and youths
lies the “New Sabah”. The story of this election’s win is really the story of
how the ‘New Sabah’ came to be and how Musa Aman has laid out a political
roadmap to realise its aspirations. Musa Aman preferred to call this a
‘Covenant of Commitment’. But I would go a step further to call it the ‘ladder
of opportunity’.
For the first time in the
middle of a high stakes election for an incumbent Chief Minister in a country
like Malaysia to go on record and express his commitment to Development takes
both courage and conviction. It is much easier to resort to cheap populism.
What I find striking about this election is the creativity with which the
“Safety of Net” has been promised.
This has been done so while
being steadfast about creating a “Ladder of Opportunity”. Thus there is the
opportunity for more citizens to cross over that much riled “Poverty Line”
through targeted interventions and join the “New Sabah”. The “safety net” that
has been promised is less of a trap that sucks you into dependency but more of
a trampoline that helps you bounce right back to find your way up that ladder
of opportunity.
The earliest indicators of
the rise of the ‘New Sabah’ came from the Census data of Rural Households.
Between the fall of Harris Salleh’s Berjaya that was wrongly attributed to
“Sabah Shining” and the re-election of Pairin Kitingan’s PBS that was once
again wrongly attributed to ‘Sabah rights based entitlements’ most commentators
have ignored what the Census data told us going as far back as 1985.
In block after block,
district after district, when queried over what kind of assistance Rural
families preferred one message came out loud and clear – education, skills and
security.
Musa Aman’s comments on the
rise of the ‘New Sabah’ during the release of Sabah BN’s manifesto for the May
5th 13 General Elections may come as a surprise to many but there is a sound
demographic basis to it.
Back in 2008 as an academic
exercise an economist friend had dissected the electoral landscape in Sabah
through the prism of the 2006 Census data. It was found that the opportunity
exists to materially alter the battleground in Sabah through a platform that
emphasized on ‘economic issues’ that can size up to the ‘economic aspirations’
of the “New Sabah”.
It is this “New Sabah” that
a hunger for job opportunities and infrastructure is shaping a different kind
of electoral discourse where development and economic growth are viewed as
essential to the ladder of opportunity while concerns over inflation manifest
into the desire for a subsidy-oriented safety net.
This is markedly different
from the Pakatan Rakyat, SAPP and Star rhetoric which is all about imaginary
rights and entitlements with the lure of cash transfers. The key difference is
that the “New Sabah” is far more impatient to climb the ladder of opportunity
rather than militate like the opposition parties for a safety net woven out of
rights and entitlements.
Social engineering and
victimhood narratives have been political anomalies for some time now with a
young and impatient Sabahans hungry to satisfy its aspirations making electoral
choices that defy conventional political wisdom. Soon they will become
anachronisms with the Sabah victory marking the first time an explicit agenda
targeting Sabahans being advanced by Musa Aman receiving such a resounding
endorsement from the citizenry.
The opposition hasn’t been
able to counter Musa Aman, but they say they have been able to contain him.
That is one way of looking at it. What Musa has won is 18 seats more than the
required majority, which is not spectacular, but the number is still more than
what the opposition has managed to win. In fact, this is more a personal
victory for Musa Aman than for the Barisan National.
There is no question Musa
Aman is a master strategist.
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