Consider This: Sabah Election (Part 1) — After the Ballot - Video Dailymotion

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Sabah’s state election has delivered a fragmented but revealing verdict. Local parties dominated, GRS returned to power without a clear majority, and urban voters sent a sharp message of dissatisfaction. How will these results reshape state and federal political dynamics going forward? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Dr Arnold Puyok, Visiting Senior Fellow at the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of Economics.

Transcript

00:00hello and good evening i'm melissa idris welcome to consider this this is the show where we want

00:16you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day sabah state election has

00:22delivered a fragmented but revealing verdict local parties dominated grs returned to power but without

00:31a clear majority and urban voters sent a sharp message of dissatisfaction so amid all of these

00:38messages how will these results shape state and federal political dynamics going forward joining

00:47me on the show to discuss this further is dr arnold puyok who is a senior fellow visiting senior

00:54fellow at the source we hawk southeast asia center at the london school of economics dr arnold thank

01:00you so much for being on the show with me today um what what do you see as the core message that

01:09sabahans had sent through this election through the results of the elections when you look at all of

01:16what um the the results revealed to you how are you interpreting them yeah so basically the first

01:25message that sabahans wanted to to uh to convey is that they voted for candidates who who deliver

01:35they voted for candidates who are seen more on the ground they voted for candidates who are consistently

01:43close to be close to the community so this is where i think grs as the incumbent government had a real

01:50advantage um and number two i think the voters are not swayed by lofty promises i think what is

01:59important for them is they want to see a government or candidates who really work on the ground in order to

02:07uh help them to solve practical problems or offering practical solutions like uh infrastructure bread and

02:15butter issues and things like that and number three which is quite significant is the um sabah for sabahan

02:22slogan the sabah first sentiment seems like uh resonated to a certain extent this explains why parties like pn uh

02:34dh were defeated in in the elections so i think these are three four messages which the voters wanted to

02:44basically uh convey to everybody right okay well so let's walk through those three key um messages that

02:52you laid out so let's talk to the first one candidates that deliver candidates that were seen to be um helping

02:59grassroots to be seen on the ground talk to me about that because to what extent did the it appeared

03:08that you know the corruption appears to have very limited electoral impact so does it matter more um

03:16that the candidates are seen to be um either incumbent or helping the people on the ground helping voters

03:23on the ground as opposed to whether the corruption scandals influence voting behavior whether or not

03:29that played a part in voting behavior yeah because if you look at the seats in sabah right most of the

03:38seats are in the rural areas these are the areas where infrastructure uh needs are really pressing right

03:48so the rural voters wanted a government or candidates who can help them fix this problem

03:55bread and issue problem right that's number one and number two of course when i go to the ground i ask

04:02the people about this corruption issue at first they say that they're quite concerned about it but in the

04:08end this is what they told me they told me that all politicians are like that it's just that some are not yet

04:15caught doing the act in the video and it's so unfortunate that the current politicians are caught doing it in

04:22the video but then again it does not mean that the previous one didn't do it so i'm not saying that

04:30perhaps we can say that it's already quote in quote accepted as a culture but what matters to the

04:38people especially in the rural area is that if you deliver if you can give help the people to solve

04:44their practical problems and whether or not you're involved in corruption it does not really

04:48uh matter and when we talk about incumbency advantage right what i mean by this is that when

04:55you are an incumbent you have access to resources you are close to the government you are you are

05:01working with the government so you can use that influence in order to serve or to deliver the public

05:08goods for people so this gives me there is the advantage okay you in the only not only yeah sorry

05:14yeah sorry feel your thought yeah because because they have the incumbency advantage it's easier for

05:19them to mobilize support especially in the rural areas yeah listen in the second message that you raised um

05:28you said that voters were not swayed by lofty promises can you elaborate what you mean by that

05:34yeah because when political parties share their election promises right we even ask the people

05:42whether or not they are basically uh drawn to any political parties with nice manifestos but this is

05:51what they tell us they say that no we are not really interested in election promises election manifestos

05:58right because everybody can come up with manifestos but nobody can really seriously

06:05pursue them right but what is working based on our observation is that what is working is candidate who

06:13uh basically show their track record it's not manifesto candidates who show their track records what

06:21they have done and what they hope to achieve if they were elected again so i think that is working more

06:27effectively rather than just showing your manifestos to the people okay so no longer promises no longer

06:35the cut right nobody nobody nobody is nobody is reading the manifestos i tell you nobody perhaps from

06:43from 10 people only perhaps one or two read them seriously the rest don't care okay so it's a track

06:50record of what you've what you've done on the ground exactly yes talk to me about the sabah first clarion call

06:58how much of that of the results was really a referendum on um for the peninsula political

07:06parties uh and the coalition and the federal leadership of um some of these political parties

07:13what are you how are you interpreting the sabah for sabahans how much that resonated with uh voters this

07:20time around it seems like it is not widespread in terms of its influence because again coming back to

07:28the issue of delivery what is important is your ability to deliver the public goods right now um

07:37unfortunately sorry fortunately for grs they also have this sabah first uh sentiment with them they are

07:45trying to promote it and only later up core came into the picture and used this as well i mean they

07:51say they used it out of principle but i think they use it because they wanted to survive they are small

07:58party they have to have something which they can sell to the electorate in order to gain support now

08:04whether or not it has got some impacts especially on the national party yes because voters seems to

08:12prefer local best parties to lead sabah but whether or not the impact is widespread that is uh secondary i

08:20do not think the the impact is widespread because if you look at the number of candidates who lost their

08:28deficit in fact local best parties lost their deposit more than the national best parties and in fact if you look at uh

08:38uh part of harapan other with the i can't remember how many candidates contesting actually there were only two candidates

08:47losing their deposit yeah the rest they managed to uh reach the threshold of not losing their deposit okay which means that

08:57ph has got some uh best time support in sabah which can help them to grow in the future okay so so having

09:05said that what lessons do you think um i know ibrahim and his his administration his regime should uh take

09:14away what lessons should they take from the results of the sub elections when you most of the um framing of

09:22after following following the results have been that ph was really trounced that dap really um was you know

09:31suffered a huge setback and should be taking some you know some lessons how are you how are you reading

09:37it what what lessons do you think i know i should take from the results look do not take governance for

09:43granted that's number one so not take governance for granted people are really not happy in terms of how

09:51issues of corruption issues of governance are handled here in sabah of course you only see that impact

09:57in the urban areas among the chinese areas but uh it it is not controlled that's going to affect him

10:04in the long run number two federal presence and political alone are not really enough because if you

10:13come to sabah right you see a lot of posters with anwar saying sayang pm sayang sabah and all that that also

10:19was not enough to gain the support of of of uh of sabahan so um for ph i think they need to seriously

10:31invest in leadership development in sabah especially uh pkr start to groom leaders brand new leaders okay

10:39i see this about wanting to uh gain a significant food hog in sample i'm not saying that they are totally

10:45drowned or i'm not saying that pkr is totally collapsed no as i mentioned to you earlier right

10:53only two of the candidates lose their deficit which means that in terms of best support

10:58grassroots support is still there yes okay and and what do you think is next for for sabah when you look

11:07at the key the new uh administration that's been announced the new uh cabinet as well what do you

11:14think should be their priorities and what uh pressures do you expect this new government state government to

11:20face yeah yeah i wanted to say that earlier before this interview right i was uh hoping that hadji would

11:26start with the cabinet right he would form a strong cabinet people who are not tempted with allegations of

11:34corruptions or implicated implicated in issues of corruptions but you look at the list of cabinet members that he appointed

11:43so actually he to say that he is serious or not about dealing with governance issue i'm not too sure

11:51but it seems like he is not um so number one is government issue is very important governance reform

11:58number two i think what the new government should do is to really reform the civil studies and the reason

12:05why sabah is lagging behind the reason why we have a lot of infrastructure problem because our civil

12:13service is not effective so real and bold reform must be done in the civil studies so these two are quite

12:21crucial for sabah okay well thank you so much for joining us on the show and sharing your analysis with

12:28us that was dr arnold puyok senior visiting senior fellow from lse we're going to take a quick break here

12:35and consider this we'll be back with more stay tuned

Consider This: Sabah Election (Part 1) — After the Ballot

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