SAPP-Pakatan: It just ain’t working out

By Calvin Kabaron

SAPP president Yong Teck Lee is adamant that
the party must stick to its principle that
a Sabah-based party must take the
majority of the state seats.

KOTA KINABALU: Mistrust and uncertainty within Sabah’s opposition politics could well indeed translate into a free-for-all fight at the coming general election.

Yesterday, Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) supreme council met in Likas near here and snippets leaked out indicated that things may not be going too well with its alliance with PKR-led Pakatan Rakyat.

Insider information noted that party president Yong Teck Lee implied that if things don’t work out as it should, then SAPP could well be on a collision course with its newly-found allies PKR and DAP in many seats.

The former Barisan Nasional chief minister told his comrades that SAPP must stick to its “principle” that a local-based party must take the majority of the State Legislative Assembly seats, something that PKR’s Anwar Ibrahim had signalled to SAPP at one time that Pakatan would be willing to concede or consider.

But, to many observers here, that was typical of Anwar’s trademark style which was to entice Yong and SAPP to come aboard the Pakatan ship first.

One SAPP leader told FMT that at yesterday’s meeting Yong appeared adamant to go for a majority of the state seats (60 in Sabah) purely on what he termed as “the principle of Sabah autonomy”.

“That means he may even defy PKR’s seat ‘arrangement’ with SAPP if the former repudiate,” he said.

PKR, emboldened by its recent coup of two BN’s defector MPs in Wilfred Bumburing and Lajim Ukin, is unlikely to concede much to Yong and the Chinese-based SAPP.

“Yong anticipates that where PKR would not contest [in Sabah], DAP would do so to take on SAPP just to frustrate SAPP and that Anwar could not do anything about it,” the SAPP leader said.

Trouble in STAR

Meanwhile, over the weekend, another pivotal Sabah opposition leader, Jeffrey Kitingan, told the local press that he was scheduled to meet Yong today.

He, however, cautioned supporters not to expect too much from the meeting.

The State Reform Party (STAR) he leads in Sabah, while still open to work a minimum seat arrangement with SAPP, is actually poised to leave SAPP out after Yong made his own deals with Anwar on Sabah’s seats.

As of yesterday, an insider in STAR claimed that a majority of its leaders, who are young Turks and are green horns in politics, wanted their leader to be decisive instead of dragging until the last minute to decide on seats and candidates.

Many in STAR complained that Jeffrey’s dragging his feet on candidacy and playing “openness” with other players had denied the party a more rigorous campaigning at the grassroots level.

“It would be different if you know you are the candidate already; we can start straight away on house-to-house campaign.

“But with [this] uncertainty, many potential candidates just shy away from too much promotion which is bad for the party which is already lacking in funds,” said one potential candidate who requested anonymity.

He alleged some very good potential candidates from STAR have yet to resign from their jobs, fearing they would not be fielded in the end.

United opposition unlikely

Yong at yesterday’s SAPP meeting also left his party in suspense over how many seats the basically urban-based party would contest.

As of yesterday, many SAPP aspirants were happier for a while as the president indicated the party might go for more than half or 30 of the total 60 state seats. That certainly gave hope to these “Yang Berhormat” aspirants.

It is the same scenario in STAR, and also in Sabah PKR and DAP, and to some certain extent PAS.

“I admire Yong’s gut and spirit. But we all know having gut and spirit alone would not win you the election. That’s the sad reality of Sabah politics…” texted another SAPP leader on Yong’s remarks at the meeting yesterday.

Meanwhile, Yong was also said to have taken a swipe at STAR’s notion that since SAPP is not in United Borneo Alliance (UBA), then it does not support the “Borneo Agenda”, and that it automatically is supporting “Malaya Agenda”.

Many analysts are already sceptical about having a united opposition in Sabah to take on the increasingly embattled but still much mightier BN in the state.

At stake is 60 state and 26 parliamentary seats, including one for Labuan island which is a Federal Territory.

Senior journalist Joe Fernandez observed that all (political) things get murkier because of the trademark of “politicians not saying what they mean, and do not mean what they say”.