KOTA KINABALU, Dec 31 — To say politics dominated conversations in Sabah this year would be an understatement.
The founding of new political parties, the political musical chairs played by politicians switching parties, and rumours of snap polls made up the daily coffeeshop chatter in the run-up to GE14 and continued after.
Other policy issues that got tongues wagging in public and in private were the reinstatement of Borneo rights, another “Projek IC”, racial and religious controversies, including the most recent over Education Minister Maszlee Malik’s “medan dakwah” remark, which he insists does not mean he was pushing an Islamic propagation agenda in Sabah schools.
But not everything revolved around politics this year. Environmental issues and tourism-related news were also big, while security, crime and disasters were less prominent.
Here is a look at some of Sabah’s most talked about issues in 2018.
Run up to GE14
The Barisan Nasional (BN) government held a steady, confident front against a messy Opposition playing field. In January, snap state polls for Sabah were on everyone’s lips and sent the small Opposition force scrambling to get ready.
Political observers were keen to see whether the fractious then-Opposition parties in Sabah could come to any agreement that would avoid the dreaded splitting of votes that would be tantamount to handing the BN government the win.
As it turned out, one Pakatan Harapan party, Amanah, became collateral damage in the negotiations with Parti Warisan Sabah and wound up with no seats, while PKR and DAP successfully navigated the negotiations.
Another local alliance, United Sabah Alliance also emerged with a five-party agreement not to field candidates against each other. With a few senior leaders helming these parties, some believe that they held enough influence with their “Sabahans for Sabah” rally cry, to win a few seats, or at least cause some upsets.
Post GE14
It was always going to be an interesting result, but no one predicted the incredible twists and turns that followed after balloting ended on May 9.
On the historic night, Sabah helped deliver enough MP seats for the PH coalition to claim a simple majority. But it was the state poll results that trickled in that would set off several tsunamis of political change later on.
When results saw a draw of 29 seats each for BN and Warisan/PKR/DAP, and two for Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (Star), the latter became kingmaker in the ensuing melee the following morning.
After Datuk Jeffrey Kitingan eventually chose to side with BN, under the leadership of Tan Sri Musa Aman, the latter was sworn-in as chief minister while a crowd gathered one kilometre away at the town field in protest.
But the next day, six BN assemblymen — four from Umno, two from Upko — publicly announced their support for Warisan and shifted the power play.
Governor Tun Juhar Mahiruddin swore Shafie in as chief minister on May 12, at 8.30pm, not even 48 hours after Musa — effectively giving Sabah “two chief ministers” at a point in time.
To add more drama to the spectacle, Musa left Sabah the day that Shafie clocked in to work at the newly-built state government administrative building, built by Musa’s administration, as police reports and corruption investigations were mounting against him.
Musa was evidently recuperating from an illness in London and was conspicuously missing for four months until September, where he flew in by private jet to take his oath as Sungai Sibuga assemblyman.
On November 7, the High Court finally ruled in Shafie’s favour, declaring that the Head of State had jurisdiction to decide who had the majority support in the State Assembly. Musa has since taken the case to the Court of Appeal.
Elephant deaths
This year has also a sad year for Sabah’s wildlife, with an unprecedented 27 elephants deaths reported.
The figure is fairly alarming given that 115 Bornean elephants had been killed between 2010 and 2018, with most of them occurring on palm oil plantations or nearby forest reserves, and half of the deaths were due to suspected poisoning or gunshot wounds.
Others died in captivity in the government-run Lok Kawi Wildlife Park, and heightened calls that the park be shut down due to negligence and lack of competency.
Sabah’s wildlife like the Sumatran Rhinoceros is already declared extinct in the wild, while others like the banteng, pangolins, sun bears and orangutans are also fast dwindling.
Tourism
Sabah’s tourism industry, among its highest income earners, have been riding on a high, and looking at RM8 billion in tourism receipts, higher than 2017’s RM7.7 billion.
For the first half of 2018, tourist arrivals into Sabah was registered at 1.892 million compared to 1.796 million for the same period last year, which marked an increase of 96,026 or 5.35 per cent.
The arrivals include international arrivals made up 16.57 per cent of this increase, with China market as the largest contributor to the increase foreign arrivals, with over half a million Chinese tourists.
Along with the increased Chinese tourists, illegal tour operators have been on the rise and the authorities have had their hands full attempting to stop the flourish of online services and fly by night companies.
The boom also saw luxury hotel chain Marriott opening, along with mushrooming of accommodation services like Airbnb.
Domino’s arrives in Sabah
The pizza chain specialising in delivery has finally reached Sabah and broke international sales record at its first store in Sabah during its opening week.
It also broke the national record best opening week in the past 20 years in a six-figure amount, and more than 10,000 pizzas.
The first store at Bundusan, open on September 16, followed by three others at Riverson Walk, Inanam, Sulaman and at the International Technology and Commercial Centre in Penampang.
Filipino fast food chain Jollibee also expanded to Kota Kinabalu, after phenomenal openings in London and Manhattan. It is the first city in Malaysia to have a Jollibee outlet.
Jollibee, popular for fried chicken and spaghetti not only appeals to the Filipino community living in Sabah but locals have also been singing praises for its service and food.
