A battle between young and old at the Sabah elections

The Sabah state assembly elections scheduled for Sept 26 will be a very interesting one indeed. Unlike the 14th general election in 2018 which was very much a fight between Barisan Nasional and Warisan, this time the number of contending parties will be massive.

Not only are more parties declaring themselves to be multiracial (to cut across the board for votes), Sabah is about to witness the return of some bigwigs to the political arena.

The latest to hint at a return to the political scene is former chief minister Harris Salleh at the age of 90.

Harris took over the reins as president of Parti Berjaya when Fuad Stephens and some of his Cabinet ministers perished in the June 6, 1976 air crash in Sembulan.

Also making a return for the impending state election is Chong Kah Kiat who was president of LDP and a former chief minister of Sabah under the rotation system introduced by then prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad to give the Chinese, Kadazan and Malays a chance at the chief ministership.

There is also the possibility of seeing Amir Kahar Mustapha joining in the fray having been dormant for over 20 years!

Can the old guards make an impact on the younger set of voters? Probably not. They weren’t even born when the likes of Harris, Chong and Amir Kahar were central figures in Sabah politics.

But it will be the older generation that could make a difference. Some of the older generation still appreciate the leadership of both Harris and Chong. It is likely they are still held in high esteem by such voters.

Besides, in all probability, this strata of voters hold little or no respect for the current crop of younger politicians who are sadly lacking in principles and integrity. When you have been brought up appreciative of values, you certainly will have no regard for those lacking in it. It’s a different generation. It was a different time. All the same, their votes count.

While Warisan remains confident of victory, for now, that can all change. For one thing, in GE14, Mahathir brought hope to the entire nation of a new beginning. The public also just wanted to see the back of former prime minister Najib Razak and his spouse. Then the 1MDB scandal became the complex equivalent of Najib and the BN government. And finally, people just wanted a change and voted for it.

This time, there is no central bogeyman figure to crucify. Cries of kleptocracy have somewhat faded into the background. It is hard to exploit that as an election issue when leaders in the PH and Warisan are facing corruption charges themselves.

The decision by PBS to challenge for 30 seats or more will put Warisan and Upko under tremendous pressure in Kadazandusun Murut seats. The re-emergence of Chong and the LDP who are going for as many as 40 seats will further split the votes for Warisan and the DAP.

Throw in Anifah Aman and his PCS to the mix and you will certainly see more split votes.

Lurking and hovering around for the support of the Malay-Muslim voters are PPBM and Umno who have extremely strong grassroots support.

Unless there is a clear winner with a vast majority in the assembly, the government of the day can change in a matter of hours or days.

Who will win the battle matters not as much as who will win this war.

But one thing for sure. The number of candidates that will try their luck in this election will go down in the annals of history.

It won’t matter anyway. The voter turnout will probably be as low as some of the politicians on display.

Clement Stanley is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT