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Strains In the Likas Byelection in Sabah

UMNO is sure the Likas byelection is the National Front's. The SAPP is certain victory is its president and former chief minister, Dato' Yong Teck Lee's. The Sabah chief minister, Dato' Chong Kah Kiat, has no qualms to insist that the man he would rather not have supported but has to in view of his exalted position would win hands down. All of them have a niggling problem: they are worried sick of the entry of Parti Keadilan Negara in the electoral fray. This is the sense of the news reports in the Malaysian press.

But the reality is something else. Sabah UMNO is split so many ways that its chairman and former chief minister, Dato' Osu Sukam, insisted the candidate should be a Malay. The sister of a former chief minister, Datin Saidatul Said Keruak, was ready to defy party discipline to stand as an independent, until her brother, Dato' Salleh Said Keruak, dissuaded her. The superficial UMNO unity hides cracks so wide that its candidate could not possibly have won in Likas, despite 15,000 of its electorate being Malays and Muslims; only a Chinese candidate could. Another former chief minister, Tan Sri Harris Salleh, says he would back any National Front candidate but Dato' Yong.

Four Chinese candidates -- from the National Front, PBS, Keadilan, and an independent -- are in the fray. The PBS could not persuade Keadilan to stay away. UMNO, with its animosity towards PBS and the split Malay electorate in Likas, could well vote for the Keadilan candidate to the detriment of the National Front. Which is why UMNO and the National Front attacks the Keadilan. The PBS's Chong Eng Leang would garner the votes it got the last time, with the anti-PBS Malays, in UMNO and outside, could well swing their support towards the Keadilan candidate, Ms Christina Liew, formerly with PBS. If the drift is larger than expected, though unlikely, she could be returned.

It is a win UMNO cannot accept. It would be Keadilan's first victory in Sarawak and Sabah, and threatens UMNO's eventually in the peninsula. Which accounts for the onslaught against Keadilan from National Front politicians during the campaign. National UMNO wants Dato' Yong to win, even if his appeal against disqualification fails in September and whoever got the next highest vote elected.

In other words, the courts would elect the winner. This happened once. When the MP for Bukit Bintang, Mr Wee Choo Keong, lost an appeal pending at election time, the courts ordered the loser elected. The National Front is prepared to take this gamble: it is a far better course than a Keadilan win. But, with four more days for pollings, PBS's Chong has the edge. The National Front can accept a PBS win, though with 15,000 Malays and Muslim voters, 7,000 Chinese and the balance Kadazans, it should have been the other way around.

Unmentioned is UMNO's dominating role, and its unquestioned bowing to federal demands and dictates and ignorning local sensitivities, is resented. That would be challenged if Keadilan won. Its eminence grise, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, still has much residual support in Sabah, much to the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed's chagrin. In UMNO's view, it cannot win. The National Front is challenged in the centre, north and east of the peninsula, it looks upon Johore, Sarawak and Sabah to see it through to power in future elections.

Keadilan's entry, into the Sabah legislative assembly, ineffectual as it is, would alter this equation yet again. If it wins, it repeats the stunning victory in Lunas, in Kedah. The cat-and-mouse game in Sarawak on when its Council Negri elections would be has to do with this, and UMNO's own desire for a presence in the state.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my