KUCHING: The just concluded 17th Sabah State Election (PRN17) has highlighted the resurgence of local party influence in the neighbouring state, says a political analyst, Dr Lee Kuok Tiung, who added that it arrived like a “fierce storm”.
National parties were almost completely wiped out, except for Barisan Nasional (BN), which managed to retain a few of its seats.
“The Democratic Action Party (DAP) faced a total defeat. Urban seats were swept clean by Warisan. This is difficult to imagine because in the 16th Sabah State Election in 2020, DAP candidates were the biggest winners with massive majority margins.
“It seems the shift in Chinese votes this time has significantly hurt DAP,” Lee added.
“A Chinese tsunami? The term originally gained popularity to describe the massive shift of Chinese support from Barisan Nasional (BN) to DAP during the 13th General Election (in 2013).”
In the recent Sabah election, he said, PKR fared no better, winning only a single seat.
Overall, he said, it was not just a Chinese tsunami but also a Kadazan, Dusun, Murut, Rungus (KDMR) tsunami as the PRN17 results demonstrated that the Chinese community and KDMR voters acted as a homogeneous bloc.
“Does PRN17 confirm that local parties hold structural advantages in Sabah? The swing occurred uniformly across all urban constituencies.
“If this represents protest votes, what are the grievances of the Chinese and KDMR voters? Could this signal a waning trust in national narratives in favour of local issues? One key issue is certainly the 40 per cent revenue rights.
“These are the rights of Sabah under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), clearly enshrined in Articles 112C and 112D of the Federal Constitution regarding financial formulas and special grants,” he added.
According to Lee, the lesson from PRN17 is that politicians from Peninsular Malaysia should avoid appearing arrogant or overconfident when campaigning in Sabah.
Answering questions carelessly may be interpreted as an attempt to insult local intelligence or undermine their ability to think critically, he said.
In this instance, he said leaders need to tailor their political narratives to Sabah’s unique, layered, and sensitive local political landscape, which differs from the peninsula or Sarawak.
During the campaign, he said many candidates and parties had highlighted Sarawak’s successes under Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg’s leadership as examples.
But such comparisons overlooked differences in political structures, demographics, economic resources, and administrative capacity of the two states.
Having said that, he pointed out that Sabah, under the leadership of GRS, is equally competent and moving swiftly towards a development model similar to Sarawak.
“However, these achievements are less visible because negative narratives overshadow GRS’ successes,” he said.
He added that negative narratives about GRS were dominant on social media, even if they did not fully translate into votes.
On PAS winning their first seat in Sabah, Lee said this victory was largely driven by the candidate’s personality.
Datuk Dr Aliakhbar Gulasan was seen as modest, approachable, and well-accepted by local voters.
This shows that Sabah politics remains pragmatic and locally oriented, he argued.
As for the five Independent victories, Lee said this was largely due to personal influence and local networks.
Many were former incumbents not renominated due to seat allocations among party components.
“Yet their track records convinced voters to elect them as Independents, demonstrating the personalistic nature of Sabah politics, where the candidate’s qualities often outweigh party logos,” Lee explained.
GRS, on the other hand, successfully retained multi-ethnic support by emphasising basic development, stability, and good relations with the federal government to benefit Sabah, he added.
But Lee cautioned that victory is not always absolute, and defeat is not always total.
“The people have made their choice, and now it is time to move forward together. It should be noted that these results likely reflect sentiments at the state level only,” he said.
“Lessons from Sarawak show that voting patterns in state elections differ significantly from parliamentary elections.”
