By Remy Majangkim
KOTA KINABALU: The writing is no longer merely on the wall; it has been carved into the political bedrock of Sabah.
When Sabah DAP convened in Sandakan on November 8, 2026, to speak of “new directions,” “rebuilding trust,” and “greater internal autonomy,” the rhetoric sounded less like a battle cry and more like an admission of structural defeat.
Exactly a year after suffering a total wipeout across all eight contested seats in the November 2025 state election, the party is now scrambling to salvage its last two parliamentary strongholds in Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan.
Yet, as recent events in Putrajaya have shown, culminating in Secretary-General Anthony Loke’s abrupt ministerial resignation yesterday no amount of convention speeches in Sandakan can disguise a fundamental truth: you cannot defend Borneo while taking orders from across the South China Sea.
The Sin of Historical Amnesia
Long before the ballots were cast in November 2025, there was something in the air across Sabah—a quiet, unmistakable shift that party strategists in Kuala Lumpur failed to sense.
In June and October of that year, I warned that Sabah DAP had “lost its fangs”, trading the fierce reformist spirit that once rallied urban voters for the comforts of federal coalition survival.
The party’s leaders failed to grasp a non-negotiable reality of Sabahan politics: history here is not decorative; it is constitutional.
When Sabah DAP Deputy Chairman and Kota Kinabalu MP Datuk Chan Foong Hin appeared on a podcast weeks before the state polls and compared Sabah’s 40% net revenue entitlement to state allocations in Penang, he exposed the intellectual rot at the heart of Malaya-centric representation.
Every Member of Parliament takes a solemn oath under Article 59(1) and the Sixth Schedule of the Federal Constitution to preserve, protect, and defend that supreme law.
Had those who swore that oath bothered to read Article 112C and Part IV of the Tenth Schedule, they would know that Penang entered Malaya in 1957 as an ordinary state, whereas Sabah entered Malaysia in 1963 as an equal founding partner under an international treaty covenant the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
To equate a binding constitutional right with a discretionary Peninsular budget grant is not a slip of the tongue.
It is proof of a mindset that neither reads its own Constitution nor respects Sabah’s origins. Voters recognized that insult immediately, and they delivered their verdict at the ballot box.
Silence Means Acceptance
You do not need a political analyst to measure the depth of that rejection; you only need to walk the streets of Kota Kinabalu.
In street interviews across the state capital following the fallout, ordinary residents were asked directly about their Member of Parliament, Chan Foong Hin.
The reaction was telling: a heavy, awkward silence, blank stares, and people who could barely recall his presence or record on the ground.
In politics, loud anger can still be negotiated with, it means people still expect something from you. Silence is fatal. In Sabah, that silence means quiet acceptance of an inevitable end.
Voters have already mentally moved on, treating their incumbent representative not as a champion of their rights, but as an absentee placeholder whose chapter is closed.
Throwing Their Own Under the Bus
What makes the fall of these bannermen even more embarrassing is how the party handled its internal fractures.
Rather than confronting the structural arrogance of central leadership in Kuala Lumpur, veteran grassroots figures, such as former Sabah DAP chairman Datuk Frankie Poon and longtime Sandakan stalwarts, were sidelined or left to depart while the party protected its federal posture.
A political movement that abandons its own local leaders to appease “the high table across the sea” forfeits its moral authority. Sabahans possess a sharp political instinct; they know when a party is fighting for them, and they know when local representatives have been reduced to messengers explaining away Putrajaya’s delays, appeals, and compromises.
The Illusion of “Internal Autonomy”
Now, facing the looming shadow of the 16th General Election (GE16), Sabah DAP Chairman Datuk Phoong Jin Zhe asks whether a party fighting for Sabah’s autonomy should not also seek autonomy within its own ranks.
The question arrives far too late. You cannot graft local autonomy onto a centralized Peninsular constitution.
As long as DAP’s ultimate command, disciplinary authority, and political survival remain anchored in Malaya, Sabah DAP will always face an impossible conflict of interest whenever Putrajaya’s coalition math collides with Bornean rights.
The Choice Before Sandakan
With multi-cornered fights brewing in Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan, and local Sabahan blocs consolidating under a “Sabah-first” banner, the parliamentary wipeout of DAP is no longer a distant possibility, it is the logical conclusion of the path they chose.
For the incumbent MP of Sandakan, Vivian Wong Shir Yee, the moment calls for political courage over party loyalty.
While Article 49A of the Federal Constitution dictates that resigning from a party immediately vacates a parliamentary seat, stepping away from a failing Peninsular banner before GE16—or choosing to stand solely on Sabahan ground, remains the only path to preserving personal dignity. Clinging to a Malaya-headquartered apparatus that Sabahan voters have already rejected only ensures that the final defeat will be complete.
Thirty Years in the Wilderness
Looking ahead, the verdict is stark: DAP will not rise again in Sabah for the next 30 years. Generational trust, once shattered through constitutional negligence and broken promises, does not rebuild within a single election cycle.
There is a deep historical irony here. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the very era when DAP first gained parliamentary momentum across Sabah from its foothold in Sandakan, our own “Little Hong Kong” Sabah’s cultural and commercial compass pointed naturally toward Hong Kong rather than Kuala Lumpur. That was an era of bold, outward-looking Bornean confidence.
Today, only the birth of a genuinely inspirational movement that uplifts the spirit and dignity of the Sabahan people could ever revive that spark, something with that rare feeling where you know there is something in the air, capable of awakening a generation.
Think of how a modern track like The Weeknd’s Hong Kong finds its soul only when anchored by the timeless, haunting voice of Faye Wong, bridging the late-80s and 90s golden era with the present through raw emotional truth and cultural authenticity. Without that kind of authentic Sabahan heartbeat at its core, any political structure imported from across the sea remains hollow noise.
The Verdict of the Fortress
In Sabah, political memory is long, and patience with outside proxies has run dry. The voters have made their decision: the era of outsourcing Sabah’s voice to Peninsular bannermen is over.
Until political leaders learn to read their history, honour their constitutional oaths, and place Sabah’s sovereignty above Putrajaya’s convenience, no rebranding will save them. The fortress walls have closed, and the bannermen have fallen.
o
