Friendly contests, shifting alliances in Sabah set to test Anwar's unity govt

Expected by Sept, Malaysian state's election will be held against a backdrop of discontent

- Shannon Teoh

KOTA KINABALU - They called for Sabah's Chief Minister to resign. They declared that the reformist agenda that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was elected on was dead. And they hurled accusations that the federal government had gone back on its anti-corruption pledges.

"We are no longer willing to let Sabah be led by those with corruption scandals. We are here to make our stand for a better future," Universiti Malaysia Sabah Student Voices spokesman Sudirman Arsyad told the crowd at a June 21 rally.

As the overnight protest march stretched into the next day, the gathering of more than 100 varsity students in downtown Kota Kinabalu unveiled a banner bearing Datuk Seri Anwar's caricature and set it ablaze.

The simmering frustrations reflect not only alleged graft and abuses, but also deeper, perennial issues such as water and electricity outages, patchy internet, poor road access and economic disparity in Sabah - one of the poorest states in Malaysia where two-thirds of the population are indigenous tribes.

Its economic development lags behind that of most of the 11 states in Peninsular Malaysia, despite its abundant natural resources. This has helped fuel growing state nationalism, driven by perceptions of neglect by the federal government. Nativist groups and politicians claim that such neglect runs counter to the Malaysia Agreement 1963, a legal instrument that granted the two Borneo states - Sabah and Sarawak - significant autonomy and control over their own resources.

It is against this backdrop of discontent that Sabah will hold its election, expected by September. On the national level, the state polls will be the first major test of unity for the Anwar administration, which was cobbled together in 2022 after a bitter election and an unprecedented hung Parliament that saw rival alliances compromise to form the government.