What are Sabah voters to make of the candidate crowd?
WITH almost 450 candidates vying for 73 seats in the Sabah state election this coming Saturday, there is no shortage of political drama as most contests are multi-cornered slugfests. As elections in the state go, this one surely takes the cake for being the most keenly fought.
Management guru Tom Peters’ tome Thriving on Chaos comes readily to mind in trying to make sense of this maddening electoral eexcess. There appearss some method to this seeming madness though: the fielding of such a bewildering array of candidates — both independents and those from small parties — must indd - cate some deliberate plan-l ning went into such an electoral stratagem.
Sabahans cannot be unique in not wanting or having a broad sweep of issues they really care about.
It seems, however, that politicians of all stripes are out to dilute any major electoral issues and thus render those issues moot in favouring one coalition/party or another.
The net effect may be to rob any winning party or group of parties any satisfaction of earning any discernibly coherent mandate from this electoral exercise. It may be that none of the opposing political camps is actually confident it will get any clear electoral endorsement by voters.
Instead, there is much talk about certain parties or even winning individual candidates ending up as kingmakers should none of the big coalitions win a majority of seats. Sabah’s political fate may then again be held hostage to the hugely detested post-election horse-trading that stalked the formation and downfall of its last government.
What are Sabah voters to make of this? They can, naturally, cut out all such electoral nonsense disguised as democracy and ignore all comers appealing for their votes except for the bigbi coalitionsc which, depite much difficuls ties, at least have discipline enough to cobble themselves together and offer voters some semblance of plausible governing co hernce.
Inndeed, the political stabilitybili that something even vague ly resembling a two-party/coalition system offers is exactly what Sabah needs in today’s especially troubling times, faced as it is with the resurgence in the state of the Covid-19 virus at the current moment, even as the pandemic’s devastating ill effects on the state’s economy (particularly its vital tourism sector) have al
ready sent down a shuddering chill.
Another ill wind has also suddenly developed as neighbouring Philippines seeks to rather noisily revive its territorial claim on the state.
The Philippines is also the source of trouble for Sabah on two other fronts: security (terrorism, piracy and kidnapping) and the related humanitarian issue of its outsized (some speculate it to be a million strong) migrant population. The latter has also become a politically troublesome wedge issue bedevilling the incumbent state administration, especially with the pivotal Kadazandusun Murut group. This gives something of an upper hand to Parti Bersatu Sabah, which is aligned to the new Gabungan Rakyat
Sabah (GRS).
As if these are not serious enough challenges to confront any incoming government, the state-federal relationship is also in a rather delicate state. The outcome of this election thus potentially has consequential national implications as it may portend a snap 15th General Election (GE15) as well.
Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has hinted as much. The stakes just cannot be any higher.
But as with any other election, bread-and-butter issues preoccupy voters over and above those stated above. The public clamour is consistent: a desire for more physical and economic development so prospects brighten for all involved.
This is where the Warisan Plus
incumbent government, presiding over a mere two tumultuous years, may be hard put to defend
pt whatever record it has chalked up. It will, of course, suggest that it never really had a chance but are voters in any mood to let it have another chance?
Whatever the faults of the preceding Barisan Nasional state government, voters may be looking back with some nostalgia at how state and federal administrations then collaborated and development allocations poured into the state.
It is a sentiment Muhyiddin is trying to fire up with Sabah voters.