PSC move...is it just a ploy?

Observers see the PSC move as a ploy to keep the electorate satisfied that something is being done about the issue of illegal immigrants.

KOTA KINABALU: The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition may have just acknowledged that it is in a fix in the “fixed deposit” state of Sabah.

That signal came yesterday when the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on electoral reform supported a long-held opposition demand for a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) over repeated allegations that illegal immigrants are voters in Sabah.

But now that the PSC has recommended that an RCI be formed on the issue, does it follow that one will be formed?

Not necessarily.

Between the recommendation and actuality lies a whole series of preliminary issues to be dealt with and finally agreement on what is called terms of reference, which is basically a series of rules on what can and cannot be investigated.

Political observers in Sabah see the PSC move as a ploy to keep the electorate satisfied that something is being done about the issue.

To quote one office worker: “Why now? This has been an open secret for two decades.”

The layman worker was referring to the exposé of what has come to be known as Project IC or Project M, with M standing for former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Mahathir allegedly engineered a scheme to re-populate the state with the perfect BN voters.

If truth be told and a RCI is formed and it does its job, it may unravel a plot strikingly similar to that 1972 satirical novel by Ira Levin – “The Stepford Wives” – that explored the idea of perfection.

Simmering anger in Sabah

In this case, observers will find frighteningly submissive voters all hard-wired to elect the BN coalition instead.
Sabah’s legitimate voters view their situation as a nightmare.

It has been long known that there is simmering anger among Sabahans over what they see as the gradual erosion of their rights and the PSC’s recommendation is the clearest indication yet that that anger is threatening to boil over in the next general election.

So the smart thing to do would be to acquiesce to the wishes of ordinary Sabahans before any further damage was done.

The PSC in Kota Kinabalu last week was met with a barrage of evidence that something is not quite right in the Sabah that the BN recaptured in 1994 and has held on to under suspicious circumstances.

It was hard to brush away the elephant in the small room at the public hearing – the state population and the number of voters had unaccountably exploded in a paroxysm of births in the space of a few years.

To do so would have opened the PSC and BN to ridicule and severely damaged the re-election chances of several Sabah BN politicians, including Maximus Ongkili, the PSC chairman.

It would have illogically legitamised Sabahans as the most fertile and procreative people in the world.

But a fully functioning, no-holds-barred RCI may turn out to be a nightmare for Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, his government and a few others.
FMT