Analyst: BN will win if snap polls held in Sabah

Unimas lecturer says this is because Sabah BN is relatively stable and the opposition is fractured.

KOTA KINABALU: The Barisan Na­­sional will likely gain more seats if Sabah state elections are held before the 14th general election, according to a political analyst.

The Star quoted Dr Arnold Puyok, a lecturer in Politics and International Rela­tions at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sara­wak (Unimas), as saying this was because the BN had relatively stable support while the opposition remained fractured.

Commenting on the possibility of Chief Minister Musa Aman calling for a snap election as early as April, Puyok said the opposition in Sabah was not a cohesive force, especially since Shafie Apdal’s Parti Warisan Sabah was planning to go it alone in the next state elections.

Puyok does not think Warisan poses an immediate threat to the BN.

According to the report, Sabah BN officials said they have not ruled out the possibility of April elections with or without the additional 13 new seats anticipated to be tabled in parliament in March.

Another reason for possible early polls, the Star report added, was that the sharing of the new seats might prove problematic for the eight Sabah BN component parties. Some believe it will be easier to go with the current arrangement of 60 seats.

Sabah opposition parties have yet to reach any consensus on fighting the BN one-on-one, and the national opposition parties PKR and DAP have been weakened by a spate of defections late last year.

In the 13th general election, the then Pakatan Rakyat won 12 state and three (of the 25) parliament seats. But defections have left them with only two parliament and three state seats.

Since the 2004 general election, Sabah state elections have been held simultaneously with national elections. -Mkini