Don’t blame Pakatan, it’s your fault too

STAR and SAPP's failures in the May 5 general election had more to do with their own sense of self-importance than being sensible.

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah PKR has come back snarling at STAR and SAPP for accusing Pakatan Rakyat of not working with the local parties which resulted in wasted split votes in the 13th general election.

In the days following the May 5 GE, both State Reform Party (STAR) and Sabah Progressive Peoples Party (SAPP) blamed peninsular-based Pakatan Rakyat for being a “spoiler” in the state seats.

But the eventual results however clearly showed otherwise. Statistics indicated that both STAR and SAPP had a combined electorate appeal of slightly over 7%.

Also significant was the fact that the exceptionally high number of spoilt votes – 2.25% of the total votes cast – surpassed the combined votes garnered by SAPP and independent candidates respectively.

This goes on to prove Sabah PKR chief Ahmad Thamrin Jaini’s argument that only a peninsular-based opposition can take on the might of peninsular-based Umno-BN.

He said PKR and Pakatan had tried talking to STAR and SAPP but on all occasions the demands made by the two parties were biased.

Both STAR and SAPP wanted Pakatan to contest parliamentary seats leaving the state seats to them.

But Thamrin explained that this rational was simply “not workable”.

“How can we accept this? We cannot do this when Umno has also fielded their candidates at state seats as well.

“They (Umno) are peninsula-based parties and only a peninsula-based opposition party can compete with them,” he said.

Shared blame

Thamrin also pointed out that from the onset Pakatan had agreed with STAR and SAPP on the Borneonisation issue.

“They talked about Borneonisation, increase in oil royalty, abolishment of the cabotage policy, review of the Malaysia Agreement, formation of the Royal Commission of Inquiry to combat the presence of illegal immigrants in Sabah and autonomy, among others.

“Weren’t Pakatan on the same wave-length? Did Anwar (Ibrahim) not promise that a deputy prime minister could come from Sabah? What more can the local opposition ask for?” asked Thamrin.

According to him both STAR and SAPP were blinded by greed and power and were not prepared to accept the seat-sharing offer made to them.

“I strongly disagree with STAR (and SAPP) for saying that Pakatan Rakyat did not want to work with them for a one-on-one fight with the BN.

“We had a common target, a common enemy, so if you want to blame anyone for the defeat, the blame should go both ways,” Thamrin said.

He said in the end it was both STAR and SAPP’s adamance that ultimately proved them wrong.

Post-GE analysis had indicated that had there been one-to-one fights with BN, then the opposition could have captured at least 20 state and eight parliament seats.

But in the final tally, Pakatan won three parliament and 11 state seats while STAR took one – Bingkor – and SAPP nothing.