Sabah Voters Every Which Way They Lose

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By Praba Ganesan
Abdul Halim Sidek Gulam Hassan tried to get himself out of Silam’s election, two days after he got into it. 
Maybe he thought 596 candidates for Sabah’s 73 constituencies was one too many, 595 is more symmetrical, divides fine with five and fulfils a secret Feng Shui requirement. Maybe he thought the other nine PKR candidates elsewhere had a better chance if he did not steal their limelight.  
“To preserve good relations and harmony with our partner parties” was his explanation. Not sure he understands elections incontrovertibly hurt feelings, what 523 defeated candidates including himself experience late in the evening of November 29.
A good degree of good relations and harmony are disrupted by political contestations. He should have instead joined a local volleyball team — get some exercise, mate — rather than a political party. 
Welcome to Sabah’s election, where anything is possible because candidates and leaders constantly find win-wins, usually by obfuscating facts, history and contradictions. 
The only losers are the voters. They lose whether it rains or not on Saturday, they lose whether they vote or not on Saturday. They lose by just waking up on Sunday.
The past is dead
The old, old days of Usno, Unko and Sabah Chinese Association, of Stephen Fuad Douglas and Mustapha Harun are long gone.  
Forget the romanticism of then newly-formed Berjaya ousting Usno in 1976, and a decade later, a newly-formed Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) sacked a faltering Berjaya in 1985.
Those were binary option days. Old versus new, with the people offered the option of change or remain.  
That era was killed off in the aftermath of the 1994 state election. As evidenced by Warisan’s short-lived 2018-2020 insurrection.
The only ingenious thing about Sabah politicians since then is their ability to think of new party names.
Sabah-only parties constitute 23 of the 71 registered parties in Malaysia. They form 32 per cent or one-third of the parties in the whole country. Not counting PKR, DAP, Amanah, PAS, Bersatu, Perikatan Nasional, Gerakan and Umno competing for Sabahan love. 
Even Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar is down to campaign, for PKR, BN and GRS candidates. It’s crowded, and the far opposite of binary as there is an average of eight candidates per race.
Asking people to choose A or B, is not on the cards.  
As such, the real horse trading begins after polling rooms are closed as winners find a way to cooperate, which is the polite way to say to get themselves into the governing majority. 
The relationship with the Yang Di-Pertua Negeri is critical, also critical would be the results for his two sons contesting for two major coalitions.
People with pure intentions publish a unity roundtable discussion six days before polling. It highlights Kadazan-Dusun-Murut (KDM) elders and present leaders speaking at the revered KDCA in Penampang. They agree a Sabah-first think is imperative. But how does that help?
I mean, being a voter who is pro-Sabah, that amazing KDM person with KDM love dripping out of every orifice, she gets up the day after tomorrow, sips some Kopi Tenom and walks to the nearby school to vote. As a N15 Kiulu voter, who should she tick?
Joniston Bangkuai is the incumbent and is Sabah-first plenty. He is PBS Info Chief and GRS candidate. 
Upko’s Joisin Romut and Terence Sinti (STAR) wait to upset him. All three parties were present at the roundtable. 
Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat’s (with the useful KDM abbreviation) Henry Saimpan is in, and bloats the Sabah-first options. Warisan and the other three in the eight-way race are also Sabah-first. 
Therefore, how does the typical Sabah-first voter choose from eight Sabah first candidates? Split the votes and hope for the best?
Or will PKR’s Thonny Chee swoop N20 Api-api with 30 per cent of the ballot because his four opponents split the Sabah-first votes, since they are all Sabah-first?
How does one prove to be more Sabah-first than the guy next to him? Have secret Sumazau dance moves, tattoo MA63 on the forehead, jump only from one Sabah-first party to another or store a Semenanjung person in their personal dungeon for purely torture sessions involving manacles?

This file picture shows supporters of Barisan Nasional and Warisan turning up to support their respective candidates during the nomination process for the 17th Sabah state election at SRJK (C) Yuk Chin in Tawau November 15, 2025. — Bernama pic
Some tips late on
Pause the caution for voters, for a second so the column slips in election bits, to be duly ignored by politicians.
If it is not going to be 1976 or 1985 anymore, or even 2018, perhaps the parties can upgrade themselves to 2025?
Last minute surprises are so 1990. If they have a narrative, mention it early, build on it, let everyone say it over and over. Messages take a longer time to settle into the collective, despite the anti-intellectual belief in “say it too late for a rebuttal” strategies.
Spoiler alert, all ideas have a valid opposing idea. The objective is for people to understand the idea which takes time.
As for the roundtable, it was completely male. I’m not a quota man, and a galaxy away from woke. But eight men, with the youngest participant forty-two-years-old, says out of touch straight off the bat. Women are half the electorate, well, get on with the times!
And realisations of other demographic shifts are necessary.
Undi18 upped youth voters on the roll, it also upped the overall roll thanks to automatic registrations. There are many young people now, and there are also hundreds of thousands who never intended to be voters or even now unaware they are voters.
Renders get out the vote (GOTV) efforts central. How many parties have created networks and asked their down-liners to call a family member or friend to walk up and vote?
Even if AI and automated SMS services have matured to leverage technology to connect, a call from a friend or auntie advances the plea better.
The Internet does connect the world but politicians here are oblivious that the people are generally connected to everything except politics.
This week, the PM’s political secretary resigned as a corruption scandal is set to burst into life, a veteran journalist was attacked in broad daylight with rumours rife about its relationship with the FIFA-FAM turbulence and most of the country encounters floods. 
But the top Internet search for Malaysians for yesterday was the Chelsea-Barcelona Champions League match. A distant second is Dharma Harun, the veteran actor who died 45 years after Adik Manja hit the screens and settled into the hearts of Malaysians. Searches for Shamsul Iskandar Akin and Haresh Deol are much further behind.
Voters are interested in football, fashion and celebrities. If candidates want votes, regardless of Sabah first or last, they might want to engage sooner and more frequently with the said voters about their fascinations rather than the politicians’ fixations.
They don’t care about us
My first trip to Kota Kinabalu was in 2009 and four aged gentlemen claimed more knowledge than the next guy at the empty bar on a Tuesday talking about how much is dished out to buy votes in their state. 
Before the bar staff offered to take me to Razzmatazz for the afterparty. Two days later I sat inside a small tavern in Kampung Air, this time the gentlemen were more about the non-tariffed beverages and spraying me with local frustrations.
Suffice to say, voter opinions are divided today as they were then.
It was just outside the KDCA five years later, a friend said he’d sell his seat if he got paid enough, and at this point he was not even a candidate yet. He did win later, did leave his party, and I wish him well for Saturday’s polling day.
Suffice to say, staying in Sabah politics is only possible by displaying flexibility in principles.
Thirty-one years ago, a coalition lost its majority overnight. Since then, walking in and out of parties for the grandest and shallowest reasons have been in fashion. Three years ago, the state government  used a technical definition to deny its own national bosses.
Isnaraissah Munirah Majilis, the Kota Belud MP from Warisan, showboated in Parliament last month — 10 days after her state assembly’s dissolution — that Sabah parties must control Sabah, just like how Malaya parties dominate in Malaya. 
There was a slew of oversimplifications but she is Warisan’s flag bearer in N10 Usukan and faces Salleh Said Keruak from Umno, a former chief minister. So, she had to go hard down the Sabah first line to help herself.
The better question would be how many people who were not raised in Sabah nor born in the state who went on to win a seat, parliament or state, in the last sixty years? Only Sabahans win in Sabah.
How many party leaders in Sabah have refused to accept those who frogged over to them? Said that on principle there should be a by-election?
While all denounce the leapers, few denigrate the leaders who facilitate.
Truth be told — do bin me for being a Malayan — of the 596 candidates, the hypocrites outnumber the Sabah-first by a comfortable margin.
Abdul Halim Sidek Gulam Hassan’s go but no go is symptomatic of human nature. Sabah is the poorest state in the country. The rewards to not go in a straight line tantalise too much and Sabahans go with that.
Sabah is cursed by its economy for now. Its politicians are cursed by their human frailties, choosing the path of least resistance. The only loser is the Sabah voter.
If there was a leader who had the capacity to rise above the petty, he or she clearly kept that gameplan close to his or her chest. 
It’s a horrible game with serpents but perhaps they rather stick with the one they’ve grown up playing rather than change the game. They ask Sabahans to change while they are resolved not to. Which is why Sabahans lose. - malaymail

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