No polls until Najib’s sure about ESSZONE

The Eastern Sabah Safety Zone (ESSZONE) is an 'emergency area' and ensconced within are 30 state and 11 parliamentary seats.

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak will only call for general election once he is absolutely certain that all the parliamentary and state seats within the 500-km long Eastern Sabah Safety Zone (ESSZONE) are safely behind Umno-Barisan Nasional.

ESSZONE covers 10 districts: Kudat, Kota Marudu, Pitas, Beluran, Sandakan, Kinabatangan, Lahad Datu, Kunak, Semporna and Tawau.

The 47,734 sq m zone “can fit in the whole of the West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia”.

Within this stretch lies 30 state constituencies and 11 parliamentary seats. In total, Sabah has 60 state and 25 parliamentary seats.

As such, the dissolution of Parliament “will only take place if and when indication shows that BN- Umno will win these areas,” said Sabah Progressive Peoples Party (SAPP) deputy president Amde Sidek.

“The ESSZONE now comes under the nose of the government agencies and is a good excuse for them to have full access to deal with the people on the ground.

“It doesn’t require special security intelligence or training to realise that it is convenient enough for political expediency,” he said.

With the ESSZONE in place, BN in Sabah goes into the 13th general election with 30 state and 11 parliamentary seats literally in its pocket.

The plan is to shore up Umno-BN’s shaky hold in Sabah following the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) disclosures in January about the granting of MyKads to illegal immigrants.

The revelations left the Umno leadership in Sabah and Kuala Lumpur in fear of its future and also made the more than one million legalised illegal Muslim immigrants jittery.

What was needed was a plan to “unite” Umno-BN’s now scared “fixed deposit”.

Coincidentally or otherwise, a group of armed Sulu militants secretly passed through the security net and landed in Lahad Datu. They staked a claim on Sabah and in the process hijacked the RCI.

Political game changer

Way back in 2011, there were speculations that the military and police were divided over their allegiance to Najib.

A war usually seals this rift and the Lahad Datu incursions did just that. It also distracted Sabahans and made the “fixed deposit” nervous.

Sun Tzu says “all war is deception” and hearing Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and other leaders claim that the intrusion had “united” the people (read his military corp) lends credence to Sabahans’ view that the “invasion” was another political game-changer.

It gave Umno-BN a chance to “repair the damage” done by the RCI revelations.

Said Amde: “We all know the existence of the fixed deposits. A MyKad was found in the possession of one of the [Sulu] leaders who was killed and another had worked with Kudat district council.

“The establishment of ESSCOM is seen by many as the most appropriate time to repair the damage done [by Umno-BN under Dr Mahathir Mohamad].”

As for Pakatan Rakyat in Sabah, blogger Abu Nawas claims that with ESSZONE in place, the opposition pact can “forget about getting any seats in Sabah and Sarawak”.

“Not many people understand the political implication of ESSZONE.

“What’s interesting is not just the sheer size of ESSZONE but the political advantage it created for the government in facing the coming 13th general election.

“[Opposition Leader] Anwar Ibrahim can sing all he wants about ‘Tanya sama Najib’ but at the end of the day, he is the one who is giving the advantage to Najib as far as Sabah is concerned,” he wrote.