The frog and the dog

To simplify things, we can safely assume that East Malaysian politics are different from their West Malaysian counterparts. Even when the West Malaysian politicians are playing for keeps, the Sabah and Sarawak politicians play this game on a distinctively altered platform where the art of staying ahead means leaving the populace behind.

Both Sabahans and Sarawakians are dissimilar from the West Malaysians populace. For a start, their respective histories are different. So are the culture, way of life, local traditions, dialects and ethnic configurations. Non-Muslims in the West are not accorded Bumiputera statuses, the indigenous people of East Malaysia are. West Malaysian politics are characterized by race and religion, East Malaysian politics are however distinguished by ethnicity.

The two major characteristics of East Malaysian politics are shifting loyalties and political patronage, hence the reptile and the canine. The frogs are those that seek greener pastures elsewhere by offering themselves as pawns and the dogs are those that who are willing to stay as pawns provided that the greener pastures are brought to them. This does not simply imply that the frog and the dog does not exist in the West Malaysian states but rather the inference that these slime subsist on a smaller scale and of less frequency as compared to the East Malaysian power players whose supporters can be forgiven for mistakenly wearing the wrong T-shirt and cap to a political rally to support their heroes.

First, Sabah. (Sarawak will be covered at another time.) Here is an example of a typical Sabahan frog in motion. Jeffrey Gapari Kitingan is the younger brother of PBS President Joseph Pairin Kitingan. Jeffrey started his political career with PBS but quit the party after the 1994 state elections (which PBS won) to join Angkatan Keadilan Rakyat Bersatu (AKAR). Within months of being accepted as a member, he mounted a leadership challenge but lost. Out he goes in 1996 and back into PBS (brothers can be very forgiving). Four years later in 2000, he once again quit PBS and joined PBRS. Another leadership challenge at PBRS once again saw him being unsuccessful and he left PBRS in 2002 to declare himself an “independent” Umno member because Sabah Umno had openly declared that the party did not want him as a member. With the ingenuity of a frog with regal intentions, Jeffrey managed to produce a valid Sabah Umno membership card, much to the consternation of the Sabah Umno, which proceeded to revoke his membership immediately after discovering that the former PBS-AKAR-PBRS member had applied (and was accepted) for membership using his legal name of Gapari bin Kitingan. How Sabah Umno failed to recognize the larger-than-life Jeffrey Kitingan during the application process just shows the inefficiency of those vetting the application.

At any rate, Jeffrey could have foregone all this trouble and stayed in PBS, thus becoming a BN member easily enough as PBS had rejoined BN prior to the 2004 state elections, but Jeffrey wanted to get out from under his brother’s overwhelming shadow. Anyway, the Sabah BN coalition partners were not amused when Umno accepted PBS’s reapplication into the BN fold as PBRS and UPKO were soundly beaten by PBS in the last state election held in 1999. To further aggravate the situation, all present PBRS and UPKO leaders were former PBS members. Ouch!

Neither were the other BN coalition parties in Sabah pleased with this outcome as PBS was a strong Kadazan-Dusun party (winning all Kadazan seats in 1999) and the current state government. Sabah MCA, Sabah Gerakan, LDP and SAPP were furious when TDM (who cares about Umno) okayed PBS’s stop and go entry into BN in 2002, as this would mean a smaller allocation of seats for them. Sabah MCA wanted 1 parliamentary and 2 state seats. Sabah Gerakan, being the new boys in town wanted the same allocation as MCA reasoning that both MCA and Gerakan are equal members on the coalition. LDP and SAPP both wanted to retain their previous allocations. Here is where the doggies come in.

Sabah MCA reports to MCA and MCA reports to Umno. So, when Ling Liong Sik was summarily informed by HRH TDM that PBS will be rejoining BN, all Ling could do was to relay the news to Edward Khoo who responded by wagging his tail. The same thing happened with Lim Keng Yaik, Chong Kah Kiat and Yong Teck Lee. After a lot of huffing and puffing, the four non-Kadazan parties and two Kadazan parties were non-starters and meekly did a woof…woof, six tails wagging in tandem.

From this combination of reptilian and canine traits came the rebirth of Sabah DAP but the party had only managed to capture 1 seat (twice) in both the 2004 and 2008 elections. DAP was dormant when PBS was the Opposition in Sabah but once PBS rejoined BN, it was up to DAP to solitarily carry the flag. PAS has tried a few times to infiltrate into Sabahan politics but was unsuccessful.

Call them what you will but East Malaysian politics will not change anytime soon but will still be dominated by these frogs and dogs. Accepting frogs does not mean automatic success as discovered by PBRS to their dismay when they accepted 6 of such reptiles in 2000 (3 subsequently made U-turns and hopped right back into PBS) as the remaining 3 all lost their contested seat in the 2004 state elections. Pakatan also learnt the hard lesson when Gabriel Adit Demong did a froggie leap from PKR after spending less than a year there.
If somehow or rather Pakatan does win the next Sabah State Elections, we will see a new kind of species emerging forth from this East Malaysian Political Tsunami – rodents (genus Rattus) , as in rats scrambling to leave a sinking (BN) ship.



comments

Sabahan politicians are just treating politics as mere toys.

They cannot be called politicians, as their mindsets are deeply embedded in their self-interest pursuit of monetary gains and egoistic power, at the expense of the tax-payers and the local citizenry who are being taken for a ride for so long a time!!!.

But the populace have themselves to be blamed for not being politically conscious enough to detect these dogs, frogs, and rodents for what they are.

Indeed the collective consciousness of Sabahans has yet to reach a critical mass to cause for a drastic CHANGE and TRANSFORMATION.

The same old political landscape in Sabah will continue to wear its ugly head with this species of canines and frogs and rodents roaming round the streets come the election day.

Sigh.... when will they ever learn


East Malaysia politicians from both the political divide are the same. Most are simpletons who try to project themselves as sophisticated know-all people's leaders. Look into their background and you'll find that they are really mostly kampung idiots who have better luck than most by being elected. That's why things like social responsibilities towards the rakyat eludes them. They think that they are chosen by their respective party to sit on the wagon train to suck our money and nothing else matter. To them it's not corruption but a reward when they steal our hard earned money. As for West Malaysia politicians, they are not much different except that they all want to be warlords.