Sabah’s opposition challenge to Hajiji may be imploding

Sabah Umno is forming a new coalition with two local Sabah opposition parties to challenge the ruling Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) led by Hajiji Noor for the upcoming Sabah state elections, expected on or before November 2025.

Sabah Umno and regional parties – Shafie Apdal’s Party Warisan and Peter Anthony’s Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat (KDM) party will join forces to form the alliance.

The alliance’s success hinged on the allies’ ability to stick together and agree to a strategic seat-sharing arrangement, ensuring a unified front against the GRS with a single primary candidate in each constituency.

In Malaysia’s “first past the post” multiparty system where the winner takes it all, a fragmented opposition always benefits a ruling incumbent – in the 2020 Sabah election, Hajiji’s alliance the GRS received 43.22% of the popular ballot, but mopped up 38 of the 73 seats.

2024 now, but barely months before its birth, Sabah’s motley opposition coalition is in disarray. The latest trigger was Bung Moktar, Sabah Umno chairman, pushing for an electrol pact with Warisan. This has led to Sabah Umno being split into two factions. One faction is Rahman Dahlan and few Umno warlords who are dead against working with Shafie. Some of them are even talking openly about departing from Sabah Umno if Sabah Umno joins hands with Warisan. Some are even whispering about Bung Moktar’s and Peter Anthony’s legal complications. All these sends a signal that the alliance may not work.

That’s not all.  Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) and Sabah MCA  a component of Sabah BN, have distanced themselves from Sabah Umno and made it clear that they will not go along with the new coalition with Warisan.

The turmoil in this infant alliance comes at a time when Hajiji looks unstoppable.

Things have changed dramatically for the GRS after December 2023. The odds in favour of the party’s electoral prospects in the elections have increased.

The fragility of the opposition alliance stems, in part, from differing perspectives on the Umno party, led by Zahid Hamidi. The party secured less than 15% of the vote and a mere 14 seats out of the 33 seats contested in 2020 Sabah elections. Two years later in the general elections Umno won only 6 of the 11 Sabah parliamentary seats contested and continues to struggle.

The perception is that the Umno is a toxic alliance partner because of its own weakness and ability to drag down the ticket.

Yet, seat-sharing is only part of the battle. The opposition, is unable to provide a compelling alternative narrative to the GRS’s popular blend of Sabah nationalism and development.

There’s no lack of issues for the opposition to rally around, sometimes even illegal immigrants (PTI) are used to participate in demonstrations, like the recent #KamiMahuAir demonstration where fingers point at Warisan. They have highlighted Hajiji’s “failure” to tackle the acute water shortages, electricity cuts and bad roads.  They have condemned the GRS in relation to the 40 per cent net revenue special grant under Articles 112C and 112D of the Federal Constitution, even though the whole world knows that Hajiji’s GRS Sabah State Government will never give up Sabah’s fundamental constitutional rights in relation to the 40 per cent net revenue special grant. This was part of the MA63 agreement, but the federal government stopped paying the state its entitlement from 1974 onwards and sought to downplay it.

Yet, there appears to be no “ideological binding force” uniting the opposition, particularly in relation to the robust Sabah nationalism promoted by Hajiji and the GRS.

To be true, cobbling together an alliance to take on a well-oiled and amply resourced GRS led by a hugely popular leader is easier said than done. It took decades for the fragmented opposition to come together and defeat the dominant Barisan National which ruled Malaysia uninterruptedly for 60 years from independence to 2018.

The Pakatan Harapan coalition, uniting disparate parties – fought against Najib Tun Razak. (The PH coalition led by Dr Mahathir collapsed within 22 months due to internal contradictions and personal ambitions of its leaders. But it did succeed in toppling an opponent considered invincible.)

So is the new Sabah Umno alliance doomed? The alliance is in troubled waters, but they can still find ways to contest together. The elections hinged on the Sabah Umno and Warisan’s performance in over 40 plus seats in the GRS stronghold of the west coast and the interiors of Sabah, rather than on the outcomes of allies in their respective constituencies.

Again, as with a lot else in Sabah politics, this is easier said than done.

𝙎𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙩 𝙈𝙚𝙣𝙮𝙖𝙢𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙋𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙖 𝙈𝙚𝙣𝙪𝙖𝙞!
𝕂𝕠𝕥𝕠𝕓𝕚𝕒𝕟 𝕋𝕒𝕕𝕒𝕦 𝕋𝕒𝕘𝕒𝕫𝕠 𝔻𝕠 𝕂𝕒𝕒𝕞𝕒𝕥𝕒𝕟!