Cloak-and-dagger game in Sabah

A GROUP of disgruntled Bersatu politicians gathered at the Meridien Hotel in Kota Kinabalu about 36 hours before the Nov 5 nomination day for the general election.

These leaders were said to be hatching a plan to field candidates under the Perikatan Nasional ticket to scuttle a seat-sharing pact between the ruling Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) and Sabah Barisan Nasional for the 25 parliamentary seats in the state.

Perikatan was already a part of GRS and had been allocated 13 seats but, at the secret meeting, a plot was apparently hatched to field its candidates in all 12 seats allocated to Sabah Barisan.

The plan backfired spectacularly.

They did field Bersatu vice-president Datuk Seri Ronald Kiandee against Barisan but now, the other four Bersatu MPs in the state have abandoned the party while all its 15 assemblymen have also walked out.

The Sabah state assembly has not enacted the anti-hopping law so Perikatan – which is led by Sabah Bersatu – has lost its hold on the state.

The amount of skullduggery in Sabah was quite breathtaking.

This happened because Kiandee found himself without a seat to contest when his Beluran constituency was given to Barisan.

While Kiandee did go on to contest and win as a Perikatan candidate, the aggrieved leaders had wanted to push for an all-out fight with Barisan in Sabah, just as in the peninsula where the two are now sworn enemies.

Word of the “secret meeting” spread quickly and Sabah Barisan, led by Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin, made it clear to Chief Minister and state Bersatu chief Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor that Barisan would pull out of the GRS-Barisan coalition .

Hajiji, the GRS chairman, was intent on keeping the electoral pact intact.

According to sources, he sent Bersatu president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin a message that he would quit as state Bersatu chairman if Perikatan went ahead to contest in Sabah.

The plot fizzled out quickly with only Kiandee fielded as a direct Perikatan candidate in Beluran while the others were GRS candidates. Bung Moktar decided to close one eye to the Beluran infraction and the electoral pact stayed intact.

GRS went on to win six seats (four by Bersatu, one each by Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and Sabah STAR) while Sabah Barisan won seven – six by Umno and one by Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah.

Still, the relations between Sabah Bersatu and their national Bersatu bosses had soured.

Muhyiddin and party secretary-general Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin were also wary of Hajiji and his deputy Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun who were strengthening GRS by having closer ties with Sabah Barisan and Bung Moktar.

Sabah Bersatu leaders were also apprehensive that their “KL bosses” were surreptitiously pulling strings with local parties including Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat (KDM) led by Datuk Peter Anthony.

KDM was said to be under the influence of powerful Bersatu leaders in Kuala Lumpur who wanted to use the party to carry out a proxy fight against Barisan candidates in interior Sabah.

Anthony did back independent Riduan Rubin (the son of GRS’ Kemabong assemblyman Datuk Rubin Balang) in the five-cornered fight for the Tenom parliamentary seat.

Riduan won, defeating Datuk Jamawi Jafaar of Barisan.

KDM was friendly to GRS but not with Barisan but its application to join GRS was left on the backburner because there was no consensus among the five-member parties.

Political observers say Bersatu at the federal level was playing its own game at the risk of undermining Hajiji’s electoral pact with Bung.

KDM and its two winning independents were with Bersatu and had initially backed Muhyiddin’s bid to be prime minister after the elections.

When it became apparent that Pakatan Harapan’s Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was the King’s choice, they switched sides.

Similarly, GRS and Hajiji also backed Muhyiddin’s bid along with Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) as a Borneo Bloc.

That left Bung Moktar furious. He described it as a declaration of war against Barisan as the electoral pact was for GRS to support Barisan’s choice.

However, Hajiji felt that since Barisan had lost in the general election, the GRS-Barisan pact to support Barisan’s choice of prime minister was off.

Like KDM, GRS also switched its support to Anwar when it became clear that he was the King’s choice.

This, however, put Hajiji in direct conflict with Perikatan’s stand to oppose the unity government.

Observers believe Sabah Bersatu leaders then had little alternative but to break away from federal Bersatu.

They needed to create a new local-based party that would work under the GRS umbrella but be amiable to the Anwar-led federal administration.

On Saturday, Hajiji did just that. He announced that Sabah Bersatu’s four MPs and 15 assemblymen were leaving en bloc to declare themselves as direct members of GRS, pending the setting up or taking over of an existing local-based party.

The move would strengthen Hajiji’s hand as Sabah Chief Minister and also appease the new federal leadership under Anwar.

It is no secret that since the registration of GRS in March, talk has been rife of Sabah Bersatu members leaving to get into a local-based party to reflect their own “independence and autonomy”.

Hajiji’s announcement thus did not come as a surprise to Muhyiddin or Hamzah, who immediately announced that Kiandee would take over as Sabah Bersatu chief.

However, the daggers are out for four GRS MPs – Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali (Papar), Deputy Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Khairul Firdaus Akbar Khan (Batu Sapi), Datuk Matbali Musah (Sipitang) and Datuk Jonathan Yassin (Ranau) – for alleged breach of the anti-hopping law.

But the local GRS leaders had been prepared for it from even before the general election.

They had set up a move to overcome the anti-hop hurdle by quitting Bersatu in October and joining GRS as direct members, according to Sabah government legal adviser Tengku Datuk Fuad Ahmad.

Hajiji or the four MPs have yet to comment if there was any pre-election “resignation” or if it was a ploy to circumvent the law that would force them to vacate their seats.

GRS secretary-general Masidi Manjun said they had been fully aware of the anti-hopping law when naming GRS candidates and would inform the Parliament Speaker on the positions of the four MPs.

Muhyiddin and Hamzah, who have not seen the purported resignations, are unlikely to let them off the hook and lengthy legal battles look set to be on the cards.

For now, Sabah Bersatu leaders and members are making a beeline out of the party to ensure that the GRS-led state government remains friendly with the Federal Government.