A historic humiliation of the Democratic Action Party, a resurgent Warisan, and a clear rural-urban divide are some of the key narratives from the recent Sabah state election. However, the key takeaways differ on who is speaking: To the Chinese chauvinists, PH did not pander to the Chinese community enough. To the Islamists, PAS winning its first seat in the election is a crack in the bulwark, which might help PAS have a pull in Sabah. To the urbanites, it is that Gabungan Rakyat Sabah played their political games well to obtain the most seats while securing the second highest votes in the election and to the provincials, it is that GRS relied heavily on their support in ensuring their plurality in the state.
However, it is time for me to give my take on it, mainly as the dust has settled and armchair commentators like myself have had time to gather our thoughts and have listened to others who have been more directly involved in the electioneering process or who are politicians who are more 'in the know' than we are. As such, there are three narratives that this essay would address. The first narrative would be the spectacular collapse of Pakatan Harapan, and more specifically, DAP. The second would be the rise of a 'progressive' third force, at least in Sabah politics. The third and last is a question that questions whether the Sabah state election results can be extrapolated into the national scene, and if so, how?
A Giant Falls: Sabah DAP collapses
One of the earliest projections in the night, which news outlets like Free Malaysia Today (FMT), The Star, and even The Vibes reported, on the unofficial count, DAP would win zero seats in the Sabah state election, which ultimately came to fruition. The formerly DAP-held seats of N.19 Likas, N.21 Luyang, N.25 Kapayan, N.55 Elopura, N.56 Tanjong Papat and N.69 Sri Tanjong were clean swept by Warisan, which could be similarly said for the formerly PKR seats of N.18 Inanam and N.20 Api-Api. This significant defeat raises questions about DAP's ability to maintain its appeal and influence in Sabah, which could reflect broader challenges for the party's national strategy and Future electoral prospects.
In my past articles entitled "DAP needs to set itself apart to combat PAS's influence" and "There is something wrong with DAP, and it is party disillusionment", I criticised DAP for factionalism and its focus on identity politics. Not only does that still ring true in this context, but they also stayed away from addressing the material conditions of Sabahans. In his analysis, former DAP MP for Klang, Charles Santiago, mentioned in an X post (formerly known as Twitter) and on an FMT article that: "DAP needs to return to basics: people-centred issues, cost of living, livelihoods, governance, accountability, transparency and public service. These are the fundamentals on which the party built its reputation; not political manoeuvring or coalition acrobatics." In essence, he is urging DAP to leave the cultural politics in the past and run on a platform of stronger public services, a transparent government and addressing the cost of living, which social democratic and democratic socialist political parties across the world have championed. An activist, Johan Ariffin Samad, said that the sentiment that DAP has become "muted" since joining the Federal Government, under the leadership of Anwar, as reported by FMT, which therefore reinforces my belief that Anthony Loke is a poor party leader, despite his many efforts to be personally a good minister for transportation.
However, the analysis espoused by Mr Santiago and Mr Samad has been shunned by the more racially motivated and chauvinistic members of our society, for a lazier and misinformed analysis. One article, which was published by The Coverage, clearly exposes that deeply misinformed thinking. While it is true that DAP has more or less abandoned Sabah to be essentially sucked up by the likes of regional alliances and parties like GRS and Warisan, who actually listen to its people, the idea that UEC and the defence of Chinese education is the central reason is just lazy analysis. It gives the reason to restart or maybe even stoke the flames of hot-button cultural issues, which were already very prevalent to begin with. This rhetoric, in my humble opinion, is dangerous because, like what we have seen across nations - and Malaysia is no exception to this - the elites will use hot-button cultural issues to divide economic classes by racial lines, making the class conflict for the working class against the bourgeoisie practically impossible. We should not let our dispositions to cultural politics get in the way of establishing a strong proletarian movement in Malaysia to get better outcomes for all Malaysians, not just a specific ethnic group. Do the chauvinists really think that they can achieve better wages and better living standards across Malaysia by relying on one particular ethnic group? Or are they too blinded by what the elites in our society feed them through their media content to not care about the welfare of the proletariat of other races?
WARISAN: An emergence of a 3rd force?
So many defections have hit Warisan since the last Sabah state elections in 2020, whereby it was absolutely mindblowing the feat they could achieve, with them being the single largest party in the Legislative Assembly and coming in first in the popular vote. In 2020, Warisan, as a party, won 23 seats in the Sabah State Assembly, as their coalition, known as Warisan Plus, which featured the core Pakatan Harapan parties of PKR, DAP and Amanah, in addition to UPKO, won 32 seats out of the 73 possible seats. However, by the time the 2025 elections rolled around, the Warisan caucus went down to 14 seats after a series of defections, as recorded by FMT. However, miraculously, the caucus has now expanded to 25 seats, with them picking up all but one PH seat, with even the safest seats from PH's side falling to Warisan with staggering numbers. I was floored by the numbers they were racking up because pulling this feat off was, to put it simply, absolutely stunning. They were by far the easiest pick for "Single biggest Winner of Sabah State Election 2025", especially as one op-ed was mentioning that Warisan was going to be wiped out of Sabah, whose takes have clearly aged like milk.
Warisan's support primarily came from the urban areas, which show a clear developmental divide with the rural areas mainly going to GRS. Warisan's entire platform was, as party president Shafie Apdal told the Malay Mail, "a long-held position that Sabah must be led by local parties that understand local priorities, even while remaining open to cooperation at the federal level." However, what they regularly did on the floor of the Sabah State Assembly was to challenge the incumbent GRS-led government on the cost-of-living crisis. Warisan MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly), like Datuk Junz Wong, have constantly mentioned that essentially, "Basic needs becoming out of reach for Sabahans due to high prices", as reported by the Daily Express, on two separate occasions. Not only were they opposing, but they were proposing structural solutions on the assembly floor, including public control of its own water systems and demanding the restoration of the 40% entitlement of revenue from the federal government, amongst other proposals under their "Save Sabah" manifesto for the 2025 election. The proposals are based on the politics of progressivism and the fundamental economic issues that have been plaguing Sabah since it joined the Federation in 1963. Instead of shying away from economically populist rhetoric and devolving into culture warfare, they are embracing economic solidarity with the people of Sabah. Sure, they engage in social politics when they must do so, but their message is rooted in social democratic theory: solidarity to address the cost-of-living crisis.
Are the results extrapolatable?
To put it simply: yes, but no. It is very clear across Malaysia that social politics is no longer a viable strategy that parties can try to do a "race to the bottom" when it comes to who can be more nefarious in their policy proposals. The people of Sabah have shown that economic solidarity, instead of divisive social politics, would attract people into voting for the candidate rather than against another candidate, which is probably something that has not been thought of in recent times, considering the Malaysian political climate. For the parties who are supposedly on the "left" of the Malaysian political system, particularly PH, this is a good wakeup call for them to start acting like the "left" that they ought to be, and must return to, in the words of Mr Santiago: people-centred issues, cost of living, livelihoods, governance, accountability, transparency and public service.
However, in Peninsular Malaysia, there is no viable "third force" that plans to push PH more to the left or make them bear the risk of losing seats, like how Warisan did to capitalise on PH's weakness, especially as Warisan is still primarily seen as a regional party, with limited power. So it is unlikely that there would be an electoral repercussion that backfires onto PH from the left, unless the voters choose a darker, sinister path: a path fuelled by the rhetoric of a nearly eighty-year-old man with a songkok.
Whatever the case, Sabahans have voted. GRS retains the Chief Minister spot, and we have a strong opposition on the floor of the Sabah State Assembly. It would be an interesting showdown between the two fierce fighters for Sabah on the floor.
Timothy (timothytanyeantim@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.