After a political party has suffered a major electoral defeat, there is often a politician from that party who complains about the party’s ideological position.
The party has drifted too much to the left or to the right. Or it has become too moderate. Sometimes this criticism develops into legislative dissent, the emergence of a new party faction, a challenge to the leadership, and ultimately a shift in the party’s policy agenda.
Whatever they said or denied, party leaders every of the political parties do not take dissent lightly.
After the just concluded elections in Sabah definitely there will be some in DAP,Bersatu, PKR and Amanah and for that matter if the leadership of UMNO is honest about it, dissatisfied with their party’s ideological course because of humiliating defeat of their respective party that has now left all these Semenanjung based parties out of the government in Sabah.
Would those stay quiet?
Performance matters and that political parties are more likely to change position if they have lost elections.
Some pointed out the results from the elections point to a general disillusionment with “establishment political parties” and specifically political parties from Semenanjung.
Some said unconventional political participation from the youths who just joined the electoral rolls with their new wave of beliefs and thinking that caused the widespread rejection of political parties from Semenanjung.
Are these youths angry at the politicians their parents previously supported?
Do they and their parents feel regret over the party which their parents voted for?
Or is it just disappointment with the election as a whole?
Or is it social fatigue with the political system and its institutions like the political parties, politicians, the enforcement authorities, government administrations etc that manifest itself as a vote against the established political parties?
It is obvious that corruption is one of the wrecking balls not only at the national level but also in Sabah too.
In the past it was common to find a certain tolerance or the nonchalant attitude of Sabahans for corruption in Sabah.
Expressions such as politicians steal, but at least they get things done were common.
The emergence and disclosure of the Sabah mineral case with visual evidence has been a watershed.
The patience of the ordinary Sabahans probably reached its limit with this case.
In its wake, probably it is the way of the Sabahans demanding that politicians and the political parties from Semenanjung that “they all should leave” and leave the governing and the adminstration of Sabah to the Sabahans.
Their presence in Sabah served only to fragment politics or to empower some parties at the expense of others.
They saw how intolerance and incivility are harming and polarizing the population in Semenanjung and they do not want the same to inculcated and practised in Sabah.
It used to be that people would discuss and debate differences of opinion, try to understand each other and persuade or be persuaded in Semenanjung and Sabah and Sarawak.
Probably the hollow commitment to reform and the lack of confidence in the Federal government in enforcing and implementing the 40% complete the reasons for the almost total rejection of politicians and political parties from Semenanjung.
FLK (leekhean.foo@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.
