SHAFIE'S SABAH SURPRISE?
I have to admit that I initially wrote Shafie Apdal off. When he, Muhyiddin Yassin, and Mukhriz Mahathir were kicked out of UMNO, I never thought that Shafie would be the one to watch.
But the wily Bajau has proven me wrong and revealed how little of East Malaysia that us Peninsular Malaysians understand. His Parti Warisan Sabah is a coming together of previously disparate cultural streams of Sabah: Shafie himself brings the Muslim coastal peoples, Darell Leiking the splintered Kadazan-Dusun-Murud, and Junz Wong the urban Chinese. He’s also attracted the young lawyer cum former beauty queen Jo-Anna Henley Rampas, who is quickly becoming a Sabahan youth icon.
Warisan’s battlecry: Sabah for Sabahans.
Increasingly, Sabahans find themselves strangers in their own homes.
In some parts of Eastern Sabah, more than 70% of the workforce is non-Malaysian, perhaps the highest in the country.
In 2013, tensions came to a head when a group of Filipino militants claiming to represent the Sulu Sultanate occupied a village in Lahad Datu. The incident revealed security weaknesses and disrupted the lives of Sabahans. Many fishermen, used to freely crossing maritime borders, found themselves restricted, while the tourist industry suffered greatly.
The year before, a Royal Commission of Inquiry was formed to investigate the alleged giving of citizenship to illegal immigrants in the state. Residents have blamed migrants for taking jobs, committing crime, and disrupting their way of life.
As such, the slogan by the Warisan founder has deep resonance in this long-neglected region—It’s almost a primal call for the land to return to its roots.
Will Sabahans answer the call? Will Warisan surprise us all?
#GE14 #PRU14 #malaysiamemilih #sabah #sabahforsabahans #warisan #shafieapdal
(Photo credit: Joe Kit Yong)
