Sabah Election 2020 - What to expect?

Sabah state election’s nomination day is set on September 12.

Major parties and its coalitions have revealed the list of candidates and number of seats they plan to contest.

UMNO has announced that they will contest in 31 seats, Warisan will contest in 46 seats and Bersatu will contest in 19 seats.

Initially, there was a clash between Perikatan Nasional (PN) with its ally Barisan Nasional (BN) and Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) in at least 11 seats, but BN, PN and PBS arrived at a consensus to avoid fielding their candidates against one another in several constituencies.

Meanwhile, Tan Sri Musa Aman, the main reason behind Sabah’s snap election, is neither listed among the BN candidates nor PN candidate list.

According to State UMNO Liaison Chairman, Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin, Musa did not request to be nominated.

Where is Musa Aman?

On September 9, Musa Aman wrote on his Twitter: “I’m going back to Sg Manila”, with no further explanation which led to many questioning whether or not he was going to contest at that seat.

The mystery was solved when Bung Moktar Radin announced the list of candidates, and there is no mention of Musa Aman.

According to Romzi Ationg, a political researcher at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), there are pros and cons in the decision to exclude the former Chief Minister.

“This decision will surely disappoint his (Musa’s) followers as he has been around for a long time. However it also might be able to improve the confidence towards the integrity of the party.

“We also must remember that only one or two candidates will be potential Chief Minister.

This decision will lessen the confusion amongst voters, which in the end, goes back to the integrity of the coalition and this is where they want to improve the confidence of the voters towards Perikatan Nasional,” said Romzi.

What is important for Sabah?

Governance of the state and the economic issues will be Sabah’s voters key considerations when going to the polls, said Dr Firdausi Suffian, a Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at UiTM Sabah in his recent column.

He wrote: “As much as political parties benefited from defection and focused so much on politicking, there is one worrying problem in Sabah, that is economic development.”

According to Former Sabah Youth Member of Parliament Shafiqah Zairina S Zamzaini, the ‘clashing of seats’ incident among a few parties in a coalition during the announcement of candidates is dissapointing.

“When parties under the same coalition are contesting against each other, it seems like they don’t have an understanding. That’s disappointing, because we need stability for the future.

“Too often, these elected assemblymen will make many promises during elections, and yet some fail to fulfill their promises after that.

"Right now, we need development for Sabah for the betterment of the livelihood of people in Sabah.

“I hope these parties will have manifestos that are realistic. There is a need to focus on infrastructure and basic facilities.

"How can we talk about Industrial Revolution 4.0 and artificial intelligence when in Sabah, we still face challenges like the lack of access to water and electricity?” Shafiqah said.

What to expect?

This election, Sabah UMNO are fielding 90-95 percent new faces, whereas Warisan has a strategy of fielding incumbents in stronghold seats in some constituencies; both parties employing quite different strategies.

Besides the Barisan Nasional-Perikatan Nasional and Warisan Plus coalition, there’s Parti Cinta Sabah (PCS) led by Datuk Seri Anifah Aman who is planning to contest in all 73 seats, Parti Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Sabah Bersatu (USNO) and Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah is planning to contest in 40 seats and 39 seats.

Among the 73 state assembly seats which is up for grabs, we are already seeing a few having six-cornered contests, which includes Bengkoka (N.02), Tandek (N.07), Inanam (N.18), Tanjung Aru (N.22) and Kukusan (N.70).

As the state election is set on September 26 and early voting on September 22, what is clear among all parties and coalitions, including the people in Sabah is that they are hoping for a positive outcome from this election.