From Fui K Soong
It is greatly annoying to have Sabahans thanked for somehow “showing the way”, and touted as “beacons of light” and “hope for unity” after the results of the 17th Sabah state election.
No sooner had news emerged of DAP coming out empty-handed, comments loosely alluding to Sabahan Chinese showing their “Sabah First” finger to the federal government for specifically picking Warisan flooded the net.
Do people not know that there was an array of local parties to pick from, which were also contesting the same seats aside from Warisan? Granted, they could hardly be considered a smorgasbord since many weren’t particularly savoury or memorable, but they were local, nonetheless.
Sabahan Chinese may be chronic gamblers but they are not bigots still living in the 70s, as though they had never stepped into big cities like Kuala Lumpur and never interacted with other Malaysian Chinese.
How this has been spun as Sabah Chinese against “Malaya” Chinese (DAP) is quite befuddling. Whispers of “cho suan” in Hakka travelled through the Chinese community, denoting favour for Warisan’s party logo which has a boat in the embrace of a pair of arms. This is somehow construed literally as being “anti-Malaya”.
Others say this is a force of unity, showing the federal government that they are unhappy with the lack of reforms. Yet, Sabah ended up with two “no-compromise” warring factions that are split nearly in half between GRS and a Shafie Apdal-backed Warisan.
If this is called standing up to the “Malayans”, it is probably the most disuniting show of force.
The Sabah election results are a ready narrative. It is necessary only to suit the agenda of telling the Pakatan Harapan (PH)-led ruling coalition that all is not well and that this was not the manifesto that PH supporters voted for.
But all they see is PH hobbling in one miserable seat in Sabah. This is a strong message for the reform agenda, but to lump all local parties into one happy family is erroneous.
The official results at the time of writing are that GRS garnered 29 seats, of which at least six came from Kadazan Dusun Murut (KDM)-based PBS.
Hajiji Noor has been hurriedly sworn in, with the support of five former GRS independents and three seats from Upko.
One could speculate on how this happened, given that Sabah has the charming yet quintessential moniker of “kataks” (habitual party hopping).
As risk-takers, the Sabah Chinese threw their lot in 2018 with PH because the word “harapan” means hope.
For nearly 30 years, they trusted Barisan Nasional (BN) to deliver progress and development. Instead, they ended up with the increasing exploitation of resources and minerals, the erosion of Sabah rights, debilitating poverty, crumbling infrastructure and schools – the list goes on. On occasions when federal funds did arrive, they melted away like snow on a spring day with barely a drop for the people.
So when the time came to make the change in 2018, the Sabah Chinese took the lead to take a fresh boat (Warisan), so to speak. The rest of the Sabah community followed.
By 2020, the government had changed hands. The Chinese forgave the unfortunate circumstances of the Sheraton Move. After all, it was no fault of the incumbent government. Once again, hope ran high post-GE15 when PH formed the government, this time, with the help of its former nemesis, BN. The Chinese, including those in Sabah, swallowed things in silence.
And what did the newly formed federal government do with that mandate? High-profile cases were dismissed for political expediency in Sabah. How could this long-awaited justice be denied in the eyes of Sabah voters?
Generally speaking when the Chinese are pushed into a corner, they tend to become gamblers — money or fate means the same thing. We did it once before, we could do it again. Only this time, it didn’t work out as planned.
The Sabah Chinese, in their fervour for the punishment of others, missed their biggest boat ever. The Sabah Chinese community had been the kingmaker in fractional tribal differences ever since the 80s. In fact, they became very good at the game. But not this time.
KDMs don’t see Warisan as a party that protects their community rights. They don’t trust Shafie as he is seen as too partial towards the long-standing issue of undocumented migrants. It threatens the KDM community’s sensibilities of which the Chinese are dismissive.
As sad as it sounds, the KDMs obviously felt even more marginalised under PH than they did under the former BN leadership, because all the former BN parties like PBS, Upko, GRS-Bersatu fared decently in this election — far better than PH did. So now, the Chinese have ended up with zero seats on the DAP boat, but not riding the much-hoped for sails of Warisan.
When cries of “Sabah for Sabahans” (Sarawak, take note) run dry, you get short of ferry rides. Among the suggestions now is “Borneo for Malaysia”, and to abandon the obsolete introversion of a rhetoric that has no meaning in real terms. Perhaps it’s time for a different keel.
When the gambler’s hand is out-strategised, the next question is how will it change the 90% of Malaysian Chinese elsewhere who have voted for PH. Where will the next port-of-call be — or will it be none at all?
Fui K Soong is a co-founder of CENSE, a think tank.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.