Thursday, July 26, 2012

Takuron Bangad - Sabah Froggy Politics

Hantu Laut


Tukaron bangkad, in Dusunic language means "changing shirts".


In Sabah, when a politician do the froggy thing, hopped to another political party to continue fleecing the state to feed his insatiable greed for position, money and power, the polite kampong folks would say he is only "changing shirt"  as the old shirt has become soiled, old and tattered. Kampong people are simple folks and knew no better.They get cheated by sweet talking politicians.


This kind of politician would plead to his constituents that what he did are in the interest of his people and that the present government has failed to take care of the interests of his constituents, so he needs to "takuron bangad" to care for his constituents. 


Jefery Kitingan is one man who cares about Sabah and its people, long suppressed by those colonialist West Malaysians he said.He blamed the West Malaysians for everything wrong with Sabah. He and other Kadazan leaders raised the issues of illegal immigrants and NCR lands when it was those Kadazan leaders in PBS the biggest culprits in selling NCR lands to plantation giants from Peninsula Malaysia during PBS rule. Today most of these big plantations are owned by West Malaysian companies, a legacy left by PBS leaders. Most have joined BN for obvious reason, to continue the legacy of not Sabah for Sabahans but Sabah for themselves.


More often than not, poor Sabahans bought the story and found themselves getting poorer and poorer and these corrupt politicians getting richer and richer. They squandered millions of ill-gotten gains they acquired during their tenure and turned to becoming frogs when they have no more money and position.


This curse on Sabah and its people reverberated everytime the general elections comes around and greedy politicians that have exhausted the largesse in their party would look for excuse to jump ship. 


In the 2008 General Election I wrote this article for Asia Sentinel on Sabah. The elections' result came close to what I wrote, that the BN in Sabah would not lose its majority.


In recent days, two Sabah politicians have announced leaving the BN and courting the opposition without naming any party of choice. Leaving their option open, I suppose........for Najib to persuade them to stay, of course hoping for sweeteners from the Prime Minister. 


Lajim Ukin of UMNO and Wilfred Bamburing of UPKO have tendered their resignations from all party positions but have not resigned from the party for obvious reason.

The two, have in recent months, been critical of the government and party leadership and have upped the ante to rattle Prime Minister Najib, whom they deemed in a precarious position hoping that Najib would persuade them to stay thus giving them the bargaining chip.They are using their kampong cunningness of not resigning from the party first but threatened the party leadership. Lajim is still keeping his minister's position in BN, waiting to be sacked he said. Pigeon-hearted threat that will eventually force them to quit.


Their threats have not moved the seemingly weak Najib who refused to submit to political blackmail, particularly, from political lightweight the likes of Lajim and Bamburing whose grassroots, if any, are confined to the kampong they came from.


Rumours have been circulating that Anwar Ibrahim has offered Lajim the Sabah chief ministership if he joins PKR and if Pakatan win the elections.What he promised Bamburing we don't know yet.He will be attending Bamburing's function this Saturday. 


Anwar would also be breaking fast with Lajim on the same day. This is his last chance, his final fling to be "Malaysia's Next Prime Minister", so anything goes. The man have absolutely no principle. As the Malay idiom "Cakap tak serupa bikin" that's the real Anwar Ibrahim.


Does he care of his payola of corrupt UMNO politicians that he constantly attack, accusing them of massive corruptions.Isn't Lajim an UMNO man that come from the corrupt regime?


Lajim, was also rumored to be Shafie Apdal's man to destabilise Musa Aman. Shafie, aspiring to be Sabah next Chief Minister, reputedly, had given Lajim RM90 million project from his Ministry of Rural Development allocation.


Here, Lajim says his meeting with Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Aziz was in his official capacity as Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister and not as a "frogger". How comes he never visited Nik Aziz before this.


It makes one wonder how Malaysians, particularly, Sabahans give their time of day to listen to the cock and bull stories of these good-for-nothing politicians who should have been sent to the rubbish bin of history long time ago. 



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Takuron Bangad, nice and deft expression. Apt too. Sometimes it's the simple kampung folk who can see right thru the heart of the matter.

As for the hopping, heran kan when the opposition laud frogs who jump from BN into their fold? Hero when the jump is to their side. Frog when a politican leaves PR.
Heran kan?
Malaysia ni mcm schizoid.

Anonymous said...

To those who have no idea how Sabah's political scene is after 2008, summary:

Anwar tried to convince 2 Sabah parties to hop over, one party took the bait (aka SAPP) while the other pondered and probably got a better deal from BN when it said "NO" (aka PBS).

There wasn't much impact when SAPP jumped ship since even a number of their own members left and Yong Teck Lee being know by locals for being a frog himself.

The other more infamous figure that Anwar managed to pull over, Jeffrey Kitingan, is more trouble and help and was kicked out before, so Anwar needed to find someone in Sabah, with enough fame and thus, the 2 frogs the jumped over. Unfortunately for Anwar, most Sabahan pretty much know that these 2 guys have already expired anyway.

As for those critics that the central gov is just taking away money and not investing on the state, they are pretty much blind since there are rapid constructions of new roads, facilities and what not deeper in the interior area.

And to quote from a buddy of mine in the construction field, when Azizah visited his road contruction area in 2008, she just kept quiet after asking "How are the road in Sabah?" to which he replied "We are building them up as fast and as many as we can right now to as many places as we can", in which he just replied the same thing again when another PKR guy came up last year.

2008 GE is actually a blessing to Sabah since the central gov are pouring in as much money as they can to keep Sabah as their safekeeping state.