Crisis on the Periphery: The Rift Between Kuala Lumpur and Sabah

Abstract

S INCE the Malaysian federal elections of October 20-21, 1990, there has been near open warfare between Malaysia's prime minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, and the state government of Sabah, headed by DatukJoseph Pairin Kitingin and his Sabah Unity Party (PBS Parti Bersatu Sabah). The present exacerbation of tensions was precipitated by PBS's decision only five days before those elections to switch from being a member of the governing Barisan Nasional or National Front, and join instead the opposition coalition (Gagasan Rakyat) forged by Tengku Razaleigh and his Semangat '46 party. Even before PBS mounted this challenge to Mahathir's rule, its relations with him had been strained. Only three months earlier in the Sabah state elections of July 1990, the PBS, with its predominantly Christian Kadazan and Chinese constituency, was returned to office by a 36-12 seat margin, on a platform promising to re-negotiate federal-state relations, with the aim of restoring attributes of self-government lost to Kuala Lumpur and gaining greater administrative and economic autonomy for the state. In early October 1990, Mahathir rebuffed Sabah's Chief Minister Pairin's requests for an increased share of royalties from Sabah's oil and for establishment of a state television station and a university. ' And further, the Malaysian prime minister tried to pressure PBS not to campaign against its rival party and fellow Front member, the Malay and Muslim-based USNO (United Sabah National Organization) headed by veteran politician and former chief minister of Sabah, Datuk Tun Mustapha Harun. Mahathir urged PBS leaders instead to cooperate with the USNO in the broader interests of the National Front.2 These actions led PBS to make the fateful decision to abandon the Front in the hope that the opposition coalition would emerge