Lim, Yong feel sting of Sabah’s political realities

The adage 'east is east, west is west and never the twain shall meet' perhaps best describes the political reality in Sabah which peninsular-based parties are oblivious too.

KOTA KINABALU: In Sabah, reality bites and both Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) leader Yong Teck Lee and his DAP counterpart Lim Kit Siang learned that lesson over the recent Harvest Festival.

It’s also a cautionary tale for Umno-led Barisan Nasional coalition government whose remote-control rule of Sabah does not sit easy here.

Lim learned that Sabah does not follow the rulebook while Yong re-learned that some things never change in the way peninsula politicians factor in the state in their political strategies.

The venerable DAP leader, who now acts as a party advisor, touched a raw nerve when he delivered a speech that SAPP interpreted as a ‘harsh’ lecture on the reality of politics in the country.

His remark that SAPP was being unrealistic in not joining the opposition coalition front going into the next general election recoiled on him when Sabah leaders viewed the speech as a demand for local Sabah parties to kowtow to the peninsula-based coalition, Pakatan Rakyat.

Yong, a former chief minister battling to keep his party relevant in a remodelled state political scenario, was quick to take offense and pointed out that if that was Pakatan’s view then it was no different from their arch enemy the ruling BN coalition.

Yong and SAPP believe their political ‘independence’ from peninsula-based parties is what sets them apart from the raft of ‘local’ parties who have to grovel before their more powerful peninsula-based counterparts.

DAP’s Lim however contends that he just told SAPP the hard facts about Malaysian politics and implied that SAPP is trying to turn back the clock and are fooling themselves and their supporters that they bring about change.

To be fair, the Sabah political race is a particularly difficult kind of test.

In order to pass, a party or candidate must persuade Sabahans to i) miss the colonial era and the ’60s, ii) fear much of the period from the ’70s to the’90s, and iii) start over without Barisan Nasional.

Too ‘harsh’ a reality

But implying that they have their heads buried in the sand is not a message either Yong or fellow maverick politician Jeffrey Kitingan of the NGO United Borneo Front (UBF) want to hear especially from a ‘peninsula’ politician.

Such was their dismay that Lim hastily sought to mollify them.

“If people think I was very harsh, that was not my intention. I apologise,” he said two days after his speech at a DAP organised Kaamatan dinner gathering  held last Friday.

Lim is a pragmatist while Yong and Kitingan seem to have their eyes firmly fixed on regaining what was promised almost half a century ago during the formation of Malaysia.

It’s a strong feeling among Sabahans who wishfully look back at their halcyon days during British colonial rule and at how much they have lost since they placed their trust in the peninsula and agreed to form Malaysia in 1963.

What the Kaamatan dinner on Friday regurgitated was something that has not rested easy in the stomach of Sabahans.

Yong like many other Sabahans including those in the BN believe that peninsula-based political parties are only interested in subjugating and overthrowing Sabah’s homegrown parties.

Yong pointed to how Umno vice-president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi during a recent visit openly ridiculed a Sabah party during an Umno function in the interior of the state.

Saying that leaders from the peninsula lack respect for Sabahans’ wishes Yong asked:”Is it polite when a guest openly says he wants to take away the rights of the house owner?”

The haughty ‘Malaysianisation’ of Sabah has been the nemesis of scores of politicians on both sides of the South China Sea.

Fallout worrying

Sabahans point out that they have always maintained an inclusive and open society unlike in the peninsula where the racial and religious divide is pronounced due to Umno’s firm views that produced big mistakes.
In Sabah 1Malaysia is a laughable concept.

Lim and Yong’s Harvest Festival ‘fallout’ points to worries of the political transition of sorts that local parties have to contend with.

Despite Umno’s entry into the state, talk has turned to how to limit the disaster.

For some its a debacle that has put local politicians on a leash held in Putrajaya, poisoned state-federal relations and greatly damaged the autonomy of the state.

More important, ‘Umno-misation’ has inflicted fear, misery and anger on its intended beneficiaries.

It is hard to imagine Sabahans less miserable than they were under Usno and Sabah hardman Tun Mustapha Harun.

People are now quietly saying that although Mustapha was like dictator, he was not like the Umno occupation which is more subtle and worse.

What would Sabah be like now if Kuala Lumpur had approached its undertaking of nation-building with humility, honesty and courage?

Thanks to the almost criminal negligence of the various BN administrations nobody, now, will ever know.

The fundamental truth is Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia are as far apart geographically as well as politically that efforts to bring the two together with one being dominant over the other are doomed to failure.

It’s a bleak reality. As author Rudyard Kipling said: “East is east and west and west, and never the twain shall meet.”