Umno now bolder in Sabah

The steady encroaching by Umno has seen the power-sharing formula among its BN partners in Sabah shift from a once equitable 4:4:2 balance to the current 6:3:2 combination.

KOTA KINABALU: Umno has shifted from being the dominant force in the Sabah administration to master-of-all it surveys in Sabah.

It now has even more party members in the state Cabinet giving them an unprecedented ratio of 6:3:2 in the ministerial line-up.

There are now six Umno ministers, three non-Muslim Bumiputeras and two ethnic Chinese in Chief Minister Musa Aman’s cabinet.

This is a far cry from the past when an equitable 4:4:2 balance was reached to give all the religious groupings in the state a less one-sided representation and say in government.

The encroaching dominance by one community in the cabinet became visible when the ministerial posts changed to 5:3:2 and then 5:3:3 and now standing at 6:3:2, rendering the other community leaders to minority roles in less-funded ministries.

Musa announced his cabinet line-up last week retaining PBS leader Joseph Pairin Kitingan as one of his three deputies.

The ageing PBS president was also given back his old portfolio as Minister of Infrastructure Development.

Another non-Muslim native in the new cabinet is Siringan Gubat of Upko who comes in as Minister of Resource Development and IT.

PBS Murut leader, Radin Malleh, was the third Christian on Musa’s team, holding the portfolio of Rural Development, a ministry which has achieved little in the way of rural development over the years.

The six Umno ministers, besides Musa, are Deputy Chief Minister Yahya Hussin, Hajiji Mohd Noor, Masidi Manjun, Jainab Ahmad and Tawfiq Abu Bakar Titingan.

The two ethnic Chinese ministers are deputy chief minister Raymond Tan and newcomer Teo Chee Kang, who is the LDP secretary.

Active discrimination

While questions have been raised of Umno’s increasing dominance here, leaders of state BN component parties have remained silent although there are mumblings of dissatisfaction in the back rooms of the Christian-dominated PBS, UPKO and PBRS.

The ascendency of one group over the other in the top-10 state posts in Sabah from the Head of State downwards has in fact been “hailed” by PBS, UPKO, PBRS, LDP and Gerakan, Umno’s partners in the Barisan Nasional, as “power-sharing”.

But away from the ‘power-sharing’ are talks of the gradual shift from a religiously non-partisan state government to a less balanced administration under Umno.

The same discrimination can be seen in staffing at district-level agencies and in all government departments.

Perhaps it is for this non-consociationalism reason that PBS and Upko received the brunt of the native Christians in the recent general election.

Upko president Bernard Dompok was comprehensively defeated by giant-killing newcomer Darell Leiking of PKR in the Christian Kadazandusun area of Penampang. Leiking is the sole PKR parliamentarian in Sabah now.

PBS and Upko lost seats in other areas and could have come close to being wiped out based on the combined opposition vote had there not been a split between Pakatan Rakyat, STAR and SAPP.