Sabah Umno's split tactics and immigrant project
By Viktor WongWe had managed to get some Sabahan's who are currently working in peninsular for an interview on the current situation on their homeland on condition that we should not expose their identities for fear of persecution by the state authorities and the local ruling elites.
We agreed that safeguarding their identities will be our utmost priority.
When we started interviewing them on the current socio-economic and political situation in Sabah, we were gravely shock to hear the worst of all over what we had actually expected.
Composition of ethnics in Sabah
As expected, if a general question were to put forward on who is the largest and majority stakeholder in Sabah's ethnicity, everyone of us would certainly to give one straight answer, that is the combination Kadazan Dusun and Muruts.
Okay, let us look at the current ethnic composition which we got from various source. The Kadazan Dusun and Muruts current consist of about 21.1%, while the Bajaus are 13.4%, Malays consist of 11.5%, the Chinese now made up at 9.6% and the other mixtures of smaller groups of bumiputras 14.6%, while mixtures of smaller non-bumiputra groups 4.7% (Indians, Seranis, peninsular citizens, etc).
To the most shocking event here is we learnt that a combination of two largest immigrant groups who are staying put in Sabah, that is The Philippines' Bansa Moro (Filipino Malays) and large number of Indonesians from the below Kalimantan had rose dramatically to become the largest ethnic group in Sabah. Their population had rose steadily to about 26% today.
It is also known to all that, many of these Moros and Indonesians immigrants has been given the Malaysian citizenship and many more who are currently of permanent residence status would follow suit in due time.
Umno's politics of split in Sabah
We all knew that it was then the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) under the leadership of Joseph Pairin Kitingan who had summarily rose and defeated the state Berjaya-led BN government in the 1985 state elections with an outstanding majority, thus once again brought a typically strong and united non-Muslim bumiputra Kadazan Dusun and Murut (being the largest ethnic group in Sabah) based party to rule the state on its own.
PBS who solely ruled Sabah since, then had joined the BN coalition after much courting and promises made by the federal level BN leadership in order to bring the state back into the coalition's fold.
PBS however, decided to leave the coalition due to many unfulfilled pledges by the Umno-led BN federal government, lack of funding and financial assistance to the welfare of the state.
And because of Umno's intolerance of the PBS departure and the later's dominance in the state government, top Umno leaders in Kuala Lumpur had decided to stage a coup d'etat in the 1994 state elections, which saw PBS again managed to regain its majority to govern the state.
With piles of cash and other benefits, Umno began moving into the state to engineer defections after defections of leaders from PBS which resulted to the party splitting. New state-based political parties were established at ease which saw Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), Parti Rakyat Sabah (PRS), Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS), Angkatan Keadilan Rakyat (Akar) and Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from the PBS' wreckage.
As the result, the once strong and united PBS had now being reduced to a fractured Kadazan Dusun-based party with no more firm local political standing in its ethnic politics. PBS was then being grounded to the fact the the Kadazan Dusun and Muruts in it had indefinitely split into SAPP, PRS, PBRS and Akar.
PRS later changed its name to United Pasok Momugun Kadazan Organization (Upko) while Akar was later dissolved and its leaders and members joined the Sabah Umno en-bloc.
For a few state elections to come later then, Sabah Umno had firmly estalblished itself in the Sabah political soil by continuing the type of divide and rule policies among the BN component parties in Sabah with the engineering of frictions after frictions among Kadazan Dusun parties like, PBS, Upko, PRS and SAPP, while the Chinese based BN parties there were also not spared, SAPP was then seen wanting to ensure it is always ahead of LDP in all its political benefits, rewards and achievements.
On some forced circumstances PBS had later rejoined BN and managed to regain a little of their stature by becoming the second largest party in the state BN fold. Sabah Umno is still dominant till today with a very large than usual majority in the coalition thus making it a lawful and effective stakeholder to the chief minister's post of the state, after experimenting some sort of rotation system to pleased all component parties within.
To make things worst, Sabah Umno had even extended its invitation to other peninsular-based BN component parties like MCA, MIC and Gerakan to set its foot in the state in order to rival and to weaken the local BN parties there.
As at to-date, MCA and Gerakan had made aggressive inroads into the state and these two parties are also seen recruiting leaders and members from SAPP and LDP who rival their leaderships respectively, thus making the entire Sabah BN coalition even more complicated as both Gerakan and MCA are also staking their claims on seats currently held by SAPP following the later's withdrawal from the BN coalition, which mean they are now rivaling directly with LDP who is by now the sole Sabah Chinese-based party in coalition.
SAPP's departure from the BN coalition was mainly due to the fact that there are some major issues brought up, rising influx of illegal immigrants in the state, obstacles face by the Chinese community there, no follow-ups on federal pledges and allocations to the state and various kinds discrimination as well as Umno's arrogance and dominance over the other BN component parties.
Gerakan in particular had made the most effective inroads so far by taking in quite a few state assemblymen and state cabinet ministers who had defected from their previous parties into its fold, thus strengthening its bargaining power in the state, a situation which is certain to irk LDP who is also waiting eagerly to pull all its defected and SAPP seats over.
Umno's immigration policies in Sabah
According to the Sabahans interviewed on this issue, since entering into the state and currently leading the Sabah BN coalition, the state Umno there has been loosening its immigration policies and procedures to allow the entry of illegal immigrants particularly those from The Philippines' Muslim-dominated southern region and Indonesia as well.
The rising influx of The Philippines' Bansa Moro and Kalimantan Indonesians into Sabah had affected the current local ethnic composition in the state with their current combination of percentage now standing at 26% which is expected to give them a strength in some socio-economic stand or status in the state.
Matters are getting worst today, as many Sabahans are now complaining of injustice and the increasing numbers of these Moro and Indonesian immigrants were being granted Malaysian citizenship in exchange for their continuous support, votes and loyalty the state BN coalition.
It is believed that about more than 185,000 more of immigrants from these two countries who already had permanent residence (PR) status and they are now in the waiting list to gain their citizenship sooner or later.
Sabahans: Peninsular parties, get out please!
To many Sabahans, when asked on this issue, the majority of them would preferred that all peninsular based political parties should get out of the state and leave the political affairs to the local political parties there.
Yes, they are correct in the sense that Sabah-based parties should look into their state of affairs and not the peninsular based ones, but they had forgotten one thing - all these Sabah-based political parties, particularly those from the BN are often split and very often factional infighting had always lead the formation of new political parties in the state.
Apart from that, these political leaders in Sabah are also seen to jump from one party to another too often, sometimes in one year, some of the leaders and their supporters could jump between two to three parties and in the end when none of them satisfy, a new party is then born, then factions emerge and infighting starts again and so on.
It shows that, the leaders of these Sabah-based parties had no firm political or ideological leanings at all and their every moves are always being motivated by mostly self-interests and money politics, which has always been taken advantage on by Umno, like puppets with strings on their hands and legs.
The oppositions, particularly the DAP had made its inroads into the state decades ago by far should be the most stable political party there with matured leaders as well as its members toeing strictly to its stand and political ideology. The DAP's political stature there had fully localized ever since and Sabahans had accepted the party as one of theirs.
PKR had also made its inroads into the state but so far it has yet to achieve its stability as at to-date, where factional fighting and defections are still being experienced on and on, all because of jostling for positions and to be election candidates. As at now Sabahans are still viewing PKR as an outsider.
As such, the attitudes of these Sabah-based party leaders ought to be question, because of their weak and uncommitted political stand with their focus mostly on self-interests rather than the party they are in and the people they are with.
Therefore, the entry of these peninsular-based political parties into Sabah should not be blamed on these parties itself. For the state BN, the blame should goes to Umno who wanted to divide and rule (by bringing in MCA and Gerakan to rival the existing state-based parties), while in the opposition side, there's no credible nor effective political party to provide a real check and balance in the state's administration and policies.
SAPP had just left the BN coalition there, and they are in fact still learning to be an opposition as they had been enjoying the status of being in the government for decades.
And as for now, since SAPP is still in a learning mode, PKR is still an infant, it is still the DAP who will lead the opposition charge in the state.
To get rid of peninsular-based political parties in the state for now would be impossible. The only way is for Sabahans to decide now on which of these political party they think will fully fit and localize into their communities.
As the result of Umno, the politics in Sabah by now has grown overcrowded and began to turn too complicated and it is up the Sabahans themselves now to decide the future of their state and political affairs.
If self-interests among politicians there are still above party and people orientations, then it is already too late to do anything.
