By C C Pung
Justice of Peace
The Sabah State election is coming soon.
A lot of people I know don’t care about politics.
I think that’s a wrong attitude. But being a Sabahan-born and bred, I understand that sentiment.
But looking through the comments in the many WhatsApp groups, Sabahans are not short on opinions on political issues.
Sabah politics, to most, is a mess.
Since independence in 1963, we’ve had the most number of chief ministers.
And, from being one of the wealthiest states in Malaysia in the 70s and 80s, were now officially among the poorest states with the lowest GDP per capita and eight of the poorest districts in the country are in Sabah.
‘Sabah Maju Jaya’ was the slogan in out state Crest.
We didn’t do much.
So a few years ago, the current Chief Minister decided to adopt that as the ‘new’ battle cry.
I never understood his rationale.
To illustrate the ‘mess’, just look at the sitting state government.
It is an 8-party coalition with some of the parties having no elected representative in the 73-seat state assembly.
They aren’t expected to be a factor in the coming polls.
A friend of mine considered them ‘defactorised’.
The coalition – Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) is headed by a party called PGRS made up former members of Umno and Bersatu (remember a certain Muhyddin?).
With perhaps a few exceptions, the honourable members of the Sabah Assembly have in their career record examples of shifting political allegiance.
Muddying up the landscape are the ‘Sabah for Sabahans’ battle cry, state rights/state autonomy, the lobby to oust Malaya-centric parties from Sabah.
Umno’s Zahid Hamidi dismissed the Sabah for Sabahan cry as ‘divisive’ and his opinion is also roundly discussed in Sabah.
But some Sabah parties are paradoxically ‘with’ the Anwar Ibrahim-led Unity Government while at the same time not part of the GRS state government.
If you are confused, that’s because all marriages of convenience aren’t supposed to make sense, and ‘a mess’ is a necessary outcome.
A lot of things are in play and many factors are to be considered.
In an arena where there’s a leadership vacuum, the battle line is blur and voters struggle to pick the grain and discard the chaff.
Are there grains, or are they all a waste of time?
With a flood of new voters coming into the electoral rolls through the automatic registration of new voters and voting aged reduced to 18 years old, there’s a bunch of people barely out of their teens going to join in deciding who win.
Are we in safe hands?
Editor: The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of talantang.com.
