The launching of the Pakatan Harapan Sabah this morning is one of the three mini political earthquakes to lead to the major political earthquake in the 14th General Election expected this year to peacefully and democratically change the government in Sabah and Putrajaya.

As Mat Sabu, the President of AMANAH, said just now, the issue is not whether one is a Sabahan or not, but whether the political leaders asking for popular support are men and women of integrity.

The next general election should be a choice between democracy or kleptocracy; good governance or injustices and abuses of power.

In the past year or so, Malaysia had become a global kleptocracy – which I said in Parliament is a government of 3Ps, Pencuri, Perompak and Penyamun. Equally shocking, Sabah has emerged as the most kleptocratic state in Malaysia.

In the last few days, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) arrested a Federal Ministry Secretary-General and a few millions of ringgit were found in his possession – but this was small fry compared to the tens and hundreds of millions of ringgit which the MACC found when it raided two top officers of the Sabah Water Department in October during the Sabah Watergate scandal!

China has caught and imprisoned “tigers” and Indonesia “crocodiles” in their anti-corruption campaigns but the Malaysian MACC has still to net and jail a single “shark”, and unless the MACC can net the “political sharks” in the fight against corruption, the focus on civil servants will not take Malaysia’s anti-corruption campaign very far.

There must a clean, honest and dedicated political leadership, both at the national and state levels.

Sabahans are entitled to ask why with Sabah’s vast wealth and natural resources, poverty in Sabah is so acute and abject with Sabahans among the poorest in the country. Read the rest of this entry »