Lame Duck Chief Ministers Beholden to Kuala Lumpur

In this story, I had, inadvertently, left out the Chinese who with the Muslim and non-Muslim bumiputras take their
turns to head the state government.  My apologies.

MGG

The Sabah National Front is in crisis.  The UMNO chief minister, Dato' Osu Sukam, ends his two-year term as chief minister in March, and it is time for a non-Muslim bumiputra to take the reins.  The man most likely is Dato' Jeffrey Kitingan, the brother of Dato' Joseph Pairin, the opposition Parti Bersatu Sabah leader.  The Prime Minister had thought of this to reduce politicking and prevent his forces from crossing the floor to the PBS, then united the non-Muslim bumiputra forces behind it.  For a time it worked.  It does not any more.  He now believes that two years is too short, and the chief minister must have at least five years.  I had said as such at the time, and still believe it to be so.

     But the Prime Minister wants the present man to continue for three years more.  That is unfair.  Accept the
five-year term, but let that take effect from the next chief minister.  When Dato' Osu was appointed chief minister, he knew it was for two years.  He did not object then.  He should not now.  The sneaking suspicion amongst opposition members in Sabah say this is a backdoor device to have another Muslim bumiputra to be appointed chief minister. UMNO in Sabah is riddled with factions;  the last time I counted there were nine, more factions than there are members in the state National Front.

     Any extension of Dato' Osu's two-year term would be more resented in UMNO than in the opposition.  The Sabah National Front members are mutely incensed.  When a Sabah politician says, as the former chief minister, Tan Sri Yong Teck Lee did, that people should not be anxious but "respect the Prime Minister's decision in resolving the current  political situation", the National Front is in a crisis. The parties are so divided within that it needs the federal Prime Minister to smooth matters.

     The parties in the Sabah National Front coalition would will put their case before the Prime Minister.  Broadly speaking, the Muslim bumiputras in the state want a five-year term while the others prefer the two-year term in rotation to continue.  It has worked, as Tan Sri Yong says, for seven years.  He objects to the chief ministers being terms as "lame ducks":  that "only arises in the final few months of the Chief Minister's two-year term."  Analysts in Kota Kinabalu say that if the UMNO chief minister continues for another three-years, the National Front may not be able to hold on to the non-Muslim bumiputras.

     "Muslim Bumiputras" and "Non-Muslim Bumiputras" are the preferred politically neutral terms for what is in fact a hodge podge of numerous tribal groups, the majority broadly classified as Kadazans and Dusuns, the latter living near the towns are invariably Roman Catholics and the Dusuns animists.  They dominate the political and cultural world, but it is the small Muslim community, as in neighbouring Sarawak, which has the eye of Kuala Lumpur.  It is not without reason Kadazans and Dusuns believe this demand that the chief ministers should have a five-year term is to entrench Muslim-dominant rule.  And they gather around the
former chief minister, Dato' Joseph Pairin Kitingan.

     But even this five-year term would not resolve the underlying conflicts in Sabah.  Neither the original
proposal of two-year chief ministers and, now, five-year chief ministers, are fraught with difficulties.  It is not
the Prime Minister who should decide upon this.  It should be the state assembly.  The National Front leadership in Kuala Lumpur wants to control how the state National Front leaders run their states.  It should let the state assembly to decide who it wants as its chief minister.

     At present, Kuala Lumpur decides who the chief minister should be.  This is not peculiar to Sabah and Sarawak.  In several states in the peninsula, the mentris besar were forced upon the states.  There is no commitment of that chief minister or mentri besar to that state, since his allegience is to the Prime Minister who put him there.  If the state National Front is divided or there are factions within the component parties, it worsens the political climate.  As in Sabah now.

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