Will Sabah graft scandal nudge 'kingmaker' Harapan to pick sides?

 

Sabah politics became a tangled web of alliances in the aftermath of the 15th general election.

While Pakatan Harapan appears poised to be the kingmaker who reshapes this web in the next state election, there is growing attention on whether an unfolding graft scandal implicating the ruling state coalition will impact future alignments.

To understand how this will play out, we must first take a brief look at how the current political alignments in Sabah came to be.

While Sabah has a rich political history, a bulk of it - from 1986 to 2018 - was with BN at the helm.

BN then ceded power to Warisan in 2018 with Harapan acting as partner to the new government.

However, the main political player in Sabah now is Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), which has been in control of the state since 2020.

In 2020, GRS consisted of BN, Perikatan Nasional, and Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS).

PN in Sabah consisted of Bersatu, Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (Star) and the Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP).

However, the political alignments became complicated after the GE15 in 2022.

Chief Minister Hajiji Noor aligned himself with Harapan leader Anwar Ibrahim and later led an exodus out of Bersatu into a new party, Gagasan Rakyat Sabah (Gagasan).

Chief MInister Hajiji Noor

Star and SAPP followed suit, although the latter still remains a member of the PN coalition.

New alignments

Subsequent infighting within Hajiji’s government in early 2023 also led to a state-level realignment that saw BN split in two.

Those aligned to state chief Bung Moktar Radin were ousted from the state government and left GRS, while five rebels - together with Harapan - backed Hajiji to remain as chief minister.

The new alignments at both the federal and state levels have made Harapan a kingmaker in Sabah.

With the next election looming close, both BN and GRS have expressed intentions to form a pact with Harapan, but not with each other.

For either coalition, having Harapan as a partner means political and governmental support from the Anwar administration in Putrajaya.

Harapan, however, has remained non-committal on choosing either BN or GRS as a partner.

But the corruption scandal involving incriminating evidence from a whistleblower could change that.

All those currently implicated in the scandal - which involves bribes for a mineral extraction project - are aligned with Hajiji and GRS.

Hajiji himself is being accused of abuse of power in awarding mineral mining licences, a claim which he denies.

While excerpts of the video evidence thus far have not conclusively proven corruption, the whistleblower behind it claimed that the full videos are damning in nature.

If the scandal and backlash against Hajiji’s government hit a melting point, Harapan - which prides itself as a champion against corruption - may be forced to ditch GRS as a partner in the next state election, and form a pact only with BN.

Kemabong assemblyperson Rubin Balang is seen in one of the whistleblower’s videos

If such a scenario were to happen, a GRS-PN reunion could be possible while Warisan is likely to remain a lone wolf.

BN has been accused of masterminding the whistleblower scandal, a claim it denies.

Sabah BN’s image also took a bruising after Bung and his wife Zizie Izette Abdul Samad’s acquittal in an RM2.8 million corruption case was nullified with the couple now being forced to enter their defence.

Bung Moktar Radin and his wife Zizie Izette Abdul Samad

Harapan in no hurry to decide

Meanwhile, another alternative scenario for the upcoming Sabah election is that Harapan won’t make a decision at all beyond avoiding clashes with BN and GRS.

This would give Harapan the flexibility to only make a decision on who to support to form a state government after the election is concluded.

At the federal level, the consequences should Harapan ditch GRS would be minimal.

Anwar enjoys more than a two-thirds majority in the Dewan Rakyat, with GRS and its components Star and Sabah only providing six MPs in total.

Any loss from GRS would be offset by the gains Anwar had made earlier this year from the six former Bersatu MPs who are now on the government bench.

The Sabah state election must be held by Dec 9, 2025, at the latest although speculation has been rife that Hajiji will call for early elections. - Mkini