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SURVEYS OF SABAH | As the Sabah election campaign enters its final round, the top two contenders Warisan Plus and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) are still grappling with perennial problems.
Warisan Plus, led by current Chief Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal, continued to be haunted by anti-immigrant sentiments, particularly along the west coast and inland Sabah.
In 2018, the party performed well in urban districts or districts with substantial Bajau voters, leading to the perception among Kadazan Dusun Murut (KDM) communities that the party was dominated by Bajau-Filipino descendants.
A straw poll by Malaysiakini in the KDM areas it revealed that many voters believed that Shafie had foreign ancestry, a sentiment that his opponents have been capitalizing on.
Shafie has repeatedly refuted this claim, pointing out that the graves of his ancestors were located in Semporna, to the east.
“I was with BN before. When I was with them, they called me a fighter. Now that I’m not with them, I’m suddenly a foreigner,” Shafie once complained during a rally. Shafie was vice president of Umno before being fired in 2015 and later established Warisan.
The KDM community’s mistrust of those with an immigrant background stems from the notorious “IC Project” scheme in the 1990s. Since then, a Royal Commission of Inquiry had determined that the project involved corrupt government officials granting citizenships. unskilled migrants, thus altering the demographics of the state.
Although Shafie (Photo) was never blamed for the matter, he was part of the Pakatan Harapan government that attempted to document undocumented migrants in the state, which critics claim was part of a plan to grant fast-track citizenship.
The documentation exercise, known as “Pas Sabah Sementara” (PSS or Sabah Temporary Pass), was handled by then-Interior Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who is now Prime Minister. The PSS scheme was scrapped by the Harapan government in January.
This theme was widely used during the Kimanis by-elections in January, in which Warisan lost ground among the non-Muslim Bumiputera community.
READ MORE: What is the PSS and why is it important for the Kimanis by-elections?
Leading the coalition’s counterattack is the United Progressive Organization of Kinabalu (Upko).
Upko, who is part of the Warisan Plus coalition along with Warisan and Pakatan Harapan, has run 12 candidates in majority KDM districts.
But even in Upko strongholds like Kiulu, there are murmurs of discontent among voters over the party’s association with Warisan and the problems caused by unwanted migrants.
Fractic campaign
Meanwhile, Muhyiddin’s GRS is struggling to project a united and viable alternative to Warisan Plus.
The GRS coalition has component parties warring on 17 seats, while its three main components, BN, Perikatan Nasional and PBS, are running mostly separate campaigns.
BN is pushing for their Sabah party boss, Bung Moktar Radin (Photo) to be the next top minister if they win the election. They are also using the motto “Ubah balik” (Change back to BN) during their campaign.
Meanwhile, PN has repeatedly singled out Muhyiddin as its leader with a message focused on maintaining good relations between Sabah and Putrajaya.
As for PBS, the party was confident of being the only true Sabah-based party in GRS, as well as the favorable sentiment of those who remember the party from its heyday in the 1990s.
Read more: Sabah Decides 2020: Making sense of players, parties and battles
There was an effort to repair the fissures between parties last Wednesday with the launch of a joint “Aku Janji” (electoral compromise) attended by the three GRS entities.
This was followed by the discreet signing of an agreement between PBS and PN on an employment relationship.
However, as of today, PBS has made it clear that they will not withdraw their candidates to avoid contests within GRS.
Intra-GRS problems have become field fodder for Warisan Plus. Shafie, for example, said that a rebel coalition like GRS was not worth supporting as they are unlikely to be able to govern effectively.
Personalities and feelings
With just five days of the campaign remaining, the contest can come down to the popularity of individual candidates or the feelings voters have toward certain parties.
Media coverage of the campaign in rural and inland Sabah is rare and many candidates refuse to share their campaign itinerary with journalists.
With an average of just 18,000 voters per constituency, it is realistic for candidates to rely solely on hitting the pavement to meet with voters rather than having a media outreach strategy, which is not entirely within their control.
Without media scrutiny, this raises the possibility of a “blitz,” a euphemism for vote buying, as researcher Bridget Welsh puts it.
Malaysiakini He also observed that voters tend to evaluate parties along implicit ideological lines. Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (Star), for example, was perceived as “anti-Malaya”, attracting support from those within the KDM community who harbor such sentiments.
Political decisions driven by sentiment are not always informed decisions, as demonstrated by some voters interviewed by Malaysiakini who believed that Shafie was still a member of Umno.
But politics in Sabah is fluid, as evidenced by the many “shirt change ceremonies” that take place throughout the campaign, where defectors publicly embrace their new parties or leaders by donning new colors over old ones.
This perhaps reflects the temporary nature of loyalties to personalities and parties, which could well carry over to the polls on September 26.
Follow Malaysiakini’s coverage of the Sabah state elections here.
