Why Sabahans, S'wakians are unhappy with peninsula

Joe Fernandez
COMMENT Peninsular Malaysia-based political parties, across both sides of the divide, are increasingly driving the man-in-the-street in Sabah and Sarawak up the wall.

The main issue, it is being pointed out, is that the two states have autonomy under the 1963 Malaysia Agreement.

Local political outfits and NGOs, it is said, cannot be expected to tamely subscribe to the concept of political parties based in the peninsula calling the shots in their states.

The question that arises is whether Sabahans and Sarawakians should go back to the drawing board and re-configure their politics.

For one, the growing perception in the two states is that these "imported" parties are more concerned about adding to their strength in Parliament at the expense of what is good for Malaysian Borneo.

In the case of Umno in particular, there's the added notion that its pursuit of ketuanan Melayu, or Malay supremacy and dominance, calls for the party to be present in Sarawak - sooner, rather than later - besides its dominance in Sabah.

Until Umno took over the reins of the Sabah government in 1994, the ruling elite in Putrajaya had always operated through local proxies. The proverbial fig leaf was cast aside in Sabah in 1994 when Umno engineered the downfall of the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) government.

In Sarawak, it's only a matter of time before Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) is forced to make way for Umno - and may even be deregistered, some believe. This was the fate that befell the United Sabah National Organisation (Usno).

Usno diehards are still trying to revive their party, but the Registrar of Societies will have none of it. The reason given at first was "national security", and later, that there are "too many political parties in Sabah" and finally, only ominous silence.

The ROS, running foul of the federal constitution in this manner, clearly wants to protect Umno from local competition.

Meanwhile, the Chinese community in Sabah and Sarawak, for long furiously opposed to Malaysia and other Chinese, is inclined more and more towards a "national" party like DAP, even if it is peninsula-based.
This, it is said, would help counteract Umno's ketuanan Melayu mindset.

Chinese political unity in both the South China Sea states is being propagated as the best antidote to ketuanan Melayu.

Others are not so sure and see this turnaround as motivated more by the need to protect Chinese interests through a common political platform. This would appear to indicate a willingness to do business with the devil himself.

Home-grown political parties, hence, can't help but feel that they are an endangered species, caught between Umno and DAP.

The DAP, leaving aside local parties for the moment, has some surprising competition in Sabah for the Chinese votes, but on the BN side.

Peter Pang Eng Yin (right) is a name to remember in this on-going debate. His retention as a minister in the Sabah cabinet, despite leaving one BN party for another in the ruling coalition, has brought the entire East-West BN political equation into question.

Pang, previously with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), is now with Gerakan, which has never been given any seat to contest in Sabah. Yet, through Pang and Raymond Tan, the party has managed to "worm its way" into the state government and state cabinet.

It's understandable that Tan should stay with the BN after the Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp), his previous platform, quit the coalition on Sept 17, 2008.

However, there's no reason for peninsular Malaysia-based Gerakan to get a state ministry through him. It should have gone to a local party. Tan's post of deputy chief minister (DCM) was given to Pang, who was then still with LDP.

Pang's case is even more of an affront to the local parties. His previous party LDP is still with the BN, but has been robbed, through Gerakan, of a post in the state cabinet. It's small consolation that Pang has been stripped of the DCM post.

If Gerakan through Tan could not hijack the DCM post, it would have been unthinkable for Pang to have been allowed to do so.

Also, Youth and Sport Minister Pang is junior to Tan in Gerakan, as well as in the state cabinet. Tan, surprisingly, stomached the insult when Pang was made DCM after the latter left LDP in January last year and remained partyless until this week.

Tan (left) had hung on, partyless, to the DCM post until May 2009, when he joined Gerakan.

It's likely that the remaining DCM post will be left vacant if not offered to Resources Development and IT Minister Yee Moh Chai of PBS.

The BN's own principle, which has never been enforced, is that local parties should have the majority of the seats in the Sabah state assembly.

In Sarawak, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) is doing an Umno in the state and demanding the lion's share of 52 of the 71 state seats in the forthcoming election.

The Sarawak National Party (Snap) is reportedly working towards a compromise that will see it getting 37 seats, including seven marginal seats and three mixed seats.

PKR, Snap feels, should be satisfied with 21 seats, including two marginal seats and one mixed seat. The idea is also that DAP should settle for eight seats, including two marginal seats and a mixed seat, while PAS gets five state seats, including one marginal seat.


The minority view, but still significant, in Sabah and Sarawak is that both local and peninsula parties on both sides of the political divide should unite and work together.

This position will favour local parties contesting the majority of state seats. It's also felt that national parties in the two states should only have a token number of seats in Parliament.

The majority view in both states, even if described as parochial, is that the presence of peninsula parties compromises the window of opportunity opened up by the March 8, 2008, general election.

Sabah and Sarawak, in the post-2008 climate, have a real chance of being kingmakers in Parliament, according to them.

However, this will not be possible if national parties go for parliamentary seats in these two Borneo states as well.