🇲🇾 An uncertain win for Muhyiddin in Sabah

'The political situation in the country is not stable and it is the same in Sabah'

(c/o Matthew Klein at Flickr)

Hello friends! 

Do you guys want to talk about the other Sabah story soon? You know. We probably should, right? Okay, we’ll do it. 

How funny am I, expecting we’d have a firm outcome Monday from Saturday’s vote in Sabah. I should know better, surely! There’s still more to come so we’ll pick up later in the week but for now, here’s where we’re at as of Monday morning.

Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) has claimed victory in the state after picking up 38 of the state’s 73 seats. The coalition includes nationally governing party Perikatan Nasional (PN), Barisan Nasional (BN) and other local parties including Parti Bersatu Sabah and Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku, as reported by Channel News Asia. 

It’s certainly a boost for the PN government in Putrajaya where Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin may or may not be fighting off a challenge from Anwar Ibrahim. 

“I give my highest commitment that the state government will have the full support of the federal government and that I will deliver on what I promised and mentioned during the campaign,” the Prime Minister said early Sunday via South China Morning Post. 

Still, it’s a slim margin and most commentators both in Malaysia and abroad seem to be hesitant to draw a line under all of this just yet. 

What happened, Warisan? 

The Pakatan Harapan-aligned state party should be given the opportunity to form government first, party leaders say as they hold off conceding defeat. While other parties have cobbled together a coalition, Warisan president Mohd Shafie Apdal says that with 29 seats Warisan is the majority party. 

"The results showed that the one single party which won the most seats is Warisan — we won 29 seats. Do not forget the trust placed in you by the rakyat... We know that the political situation in the country is not stable and it is the same in Sabah. The single biggest party is Warisan," he said, as reported by Malaysiakini. 

The news portal notes that Warisan outright won 23 seats while DAP picked up another six under the Warisan logo. Together with the Anwar Ibrahim-controlled PKR and Upko the coalition holds 32 seats. That figure is six short of the GRS. Meanwhile, MCA failed to pick up any seats at all.

Who got the Top Job?

Sabah’s newest Chief Minister will be sworn in Tuesday morning local time. But who exactly will be sworn in is still a mystery. Governor Juhar Mahiruddin is mulling over the decision after the winning coalition failed to come to an agreement on who will take the spot. Which doesn’t exactly bode well for a cohesive government! 

Sabah Barisan Nasional chairman Bung Moktar Radin and Sabah’s PPBM boss Hajiji Noor are both likely candidates, but why not Salleh Said Keruak, asks UMNO. The former Chief Minister has been floated by the party to take back the role he held in the mid-1990s before having a turn at half a dozen other offices both in Sabah and in the national government. 

Is that it for Anwar?

Who knows. 

Now what?

We’ll revisit this later in the week once the familiar wheeling and dealing are complete and we know for sure who will be leading the state.

But for now, a surge of COVID-19 cases has created a more immediate crisis. Overall, Malaysia has seen cases hit a fresh high since the start of the month with Sabah emerging as a hot spot. The Health Ministry announced a further 150 confirmed cases on Sunday — 124 of those in Sabah. Sadly one more death was announced also from the state. 

Voters from out of state who returned home to vote are required to quarantine when they get back. Which will, hopefully, prevent an election-linked cluster anywhere and also bore one of my most favourite tweets from the whole campaign period. Here’s hoping Cassandra Lee is safe and healthy! 

A voter at SMK Tansau, about 13 kilometres from here, was seen in a white Power Ranger costume complete with a mock sword, according to a posting by the Sabah Information Department Facebook.

A voter was also seen in one of the polling centres wearing a crown and traditional costume of one of the ethnicities in Sabah, while a photo of another voter who showed up to the polling centre in Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Nongkolud, Tuaran riding a modified motorcycle sidecar caught the attention of the netizens.

In a nutshell, most people in Sabah and Sarawak (also known as East Malaysia) are unhappy with federation because they think it has not delivered on two main promises made in 1962 — high levels of autonomy and economic development.

In the first area, the federal government has stripped away a lot of local powers in Sabah and Sarawak in the last 57 years. On top of that, the federal authorities have tried to impose the same toxic racial and religious politics found in Malaya (also known as West Malaysia) to the eastern states.

East Malaysia is much more ethnically and religiously diverse compared to the west. For example, the Malay population is a minority in both Sabah and Sarawak; in fact, no ethnic group constitutes more than 40% in either state. As a result, political Islam has not taken root here.

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