THE “abah” campaign is not expected to affect the Sabah elections as local factors outweigh national issues, said analysts.

“Personalities, family ties and track records are more important here,” said Universiti Malaya’s Prof Dr Hamidin Abd Hamid in Kota Kinabalu yesterday.

Hamidin, who is also a research fellow with Ilham Centre, said although Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has high ratings in the state, it will not directly translate to votes.

“We found that other factors are more dominant here, although Muhyiddin has positive feedback.”

Perikatan Nasional, which is led by Muhyiddin, is banking on the prime minister’s popularity to prise Sabah away from Pakatan Harapan allies Warisan Plus in Saturday’s elections.

Since nominations on September 12, posters and billboards of abah, Muhyiddin’s nickname, dot the 29 areas Perikatan is contesting in. Billboards of Muhyiddin have also been spotted along major roads with the slogan “Vote abah for Sabah”.

Hamidin said unlike neighbouring countries, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, Malaysia does not employ a presidential system and promoting a single person does not benefit state elections.

“Sabah voters, especially those in rural areas, expect to see their elected representatives on a regular basis. They want someone they can go to regularly and hence, no matter how popular Muhyiddin is, they know he won’t be the one helping them with their daily issues.”

Hamidin said former prime minister Najib Razak campaigned in a similarly fashion in the 2013 and 2018 general elections.

“When he first used it in 2013, it worked because his image was still positive among many voters. But he failed in 2018 because his image was marred by the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and goods and services tax controversies.”

Political analysts see the abah campaign as an attempt to leverage on Muhyiddin’s 90% popularity rating in Sabah, drawn from a survey by think-tank Society Empowerment & Economic Development for Sabah (SEEDS) from August 24-31.

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak political science lecturer Dr Arnold Puyok said the term “abah” is, however, misplaced.

“In Sabah, they use ‘apak’, while in Sarawak, we use ‘apai’. To use ‘abah’ here gives the sense that another federal power is trying to ‘Malay-anise’ Borneo,” Puyok said in Kota Kinabalu.

He said the abah strategy is not new, as former Sarawak chief minister Adenan Satem had referred to Najib as ‘apai’ during the 2016 state elections.

“But again, that was Sarawak and this is Sabah. Here, it’s less pertinent as voters place more importance on the candidates instead of national narratives.”

Puyok, who heads the Seeds research team, said its survey shows that although Muhyiddin is more popular than Sabah caretaker chief minister Mohd Shafie Apdal, it did not influence respondents when asked who they wanted to lead the state government.

In the survey, 39.6% picked Shafie for chief minister versus 15.3% for former chief minister Musa Aman, Hajiji Mohd Noor (11.3%) and Bung Moktar Radin (11.1%).

Hajiji is PN’s candidate for chief minister while Barisan Nasional has endorsed Bung Moktar for the job if the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah coalition beats Warisan Plus.

Meanwhile, despite being a week late into campaigning, a group of workers were spotted hurrying to put up more Muhyiddin posters along the Kota Kinabalu-Ranau trunk road. They had no posters of Star candidate Jeffrey Kitingan, who is contesting the Tambunan seat.

“We are just putting these posters up as they were given to us,” said Donol Wilfred.

He said he had no Star posters to put up.

“Jeffrey’s posters are closer to the villages further up,” he said. “But in any case, he doesn’t really need them. He doesn’t need these either,” said the Tambunan voter.

“But we just do as we are told. It’s good money anyway.” – September 22, 2020.