By NT<\/p>\n\n\n\n
KOTA KINABALU: After more than five decades of turbulent politics,\u00a0 which peaked dan triggered the collapse of the Parti Bersatu Sabah led state govrnment – a winning party in the 1994 state elections, the present Sabah government finally took a clear stand last week to combat party hopping once and for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There seems to be a new sense that party hopping has become a chronic and endemic condition for stable state government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And on May 25, the state legislative assembly passed the Constitution of the State of Sabah (Amendment) Bill 2023, which was tabled by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The anti-party hopping bill, which includes provisions to prevent those elected on the ticket of a political party from switching to another political party after winning a seat, emphasised three main principles, namely upholding the principles of democracy, respecting the people\u2019s rights through the election process and creating government stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Could this indicate a turning point in Sabah politics? And could it herald a new era of political stability?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Political Analyst Mohd Ustar Abdul Ghani opined that the anti-hop law will definitely restore political stability and sensibility, allowing democratic principles be respected and practiced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Political hopping have caused so much political turmoil and instability to the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The late Payar Juman’s political switch from UPKO to USNO have left a political vaccum for 56 years and party hopping have brought down a legitimately elected government, PBS in 1994 and Warisan in 2020,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ustar said money politics could be effectively checked with the proposed law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
” We will no longer be subjected to political uncertainties. It will allow the elected government to govern effectively and most importantly fulfilling the wishes of the electorates through a democratic process,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, once the Anti-Hop Law takes effect, propagators of Buhangkot or frog culture will not be able to play the “Kelintung” game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The frog analogy is used to refer to politicians who tend to hop among political parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, the phenomenon is so common in Sabah that a former PBS deputy president, Abdul Malek Chua, wrote a book on the subject entitled YB For Sale. “YB” stands for Yang Berhormat (The Honourable), a commonly used term for elected representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For many, the Anti Hop Law is a timely victory for Sabahans, and the joy is better late than never\u2026.but a sad day for Buhangkot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By NT KOTA KINABALU: After more than five decades of turbulent politics,\u00a0 which peaked dan triggered the collapse of the Parti Bersatu Sabah led state govrnment – a winning party in the 1994 state elections, the present Sabah government finally took a clear stand last week to combat party hopping once and for all. There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":20725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20724"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20792,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20724\/revisions\/20792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}