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• Pairin: Those crossing over should seek fresh mandate
• Barisan has until August to resolve Sabah issues, says Yong

©The Straits Times, Singapore (Used by permission)
by Leslie Lopez, South-east Asia Correspondent

They step up calls for more ministerial posts, development funds and petroleum royalties

KUALA LUMPUR - PRIME Minister Abdullah Badawi is facing a revolt in his ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition government.

In recent days, elected representatives from Sabah have stepped up their demands for greater representation at the federal government, a spike in development expenditure for the backward East Malaysian state and an increase in the petroleum royalties it receives annually.

The group, which is made up mainly of Members of Parliament from Datuk Seri Abdullah's own United Malays National Organisation (Umno) party, has also issued veiled threats that it would consider breaking away from the BN.

'We want justice. Don't say we Sabahans are talking nonsense,' the group's leader Abdul Ghapur Salleh said during a speech in Parliament on Monday.

BN officials and political analysts are taking his comments very seriously.

For starters, the grouses raised by the Sabah politicians are valid.

BN politicians and analysts also fear that other parties within the ruling coalition, particularly those from neighbouring Sarawak, could follow suit with similar demands.

Datuk Seri Ghapur's strong public remarks coincide with the repeated claims by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim that support for his coalition is growing.

In an interview with The Straits Times on Monday, the former deputy premier said that support for his Pakatan Rakyat alliance is growing among politicians and parties from the ruling BN government.

He also predicted that a change of government will take place before mid-September.

The Anwar-led opposition alliance made sharp inroads in the general election in early March, winning control of five state governments and 82 of the 222 parliamentary seats.

Datuk Seri Abdullah's Umno secured only 79 seats in Parliament - out of the ruling coalition's 140 - and the party's poor showing significantly strengthened the political clout of the two East Malaysian states dominated by BN coalition partners.

MPs from Sabah and Sarawak make up nearly 24 per cent of the federal Parliament.

Should a large chunk of them defect to the opposition, the Umno-led BN would lose power for the first time since independence in 1957.

The opposition coalition needs only 30 defections to secure a simple majority to form the government, and many analysts believe that cross-overs from Sabah, where Umno controls 13 seats, could trigger a domino effect in favour of Datuk Seri Anwar's opposition coalition.

The restive politicians in Sabah present the embattled Premier with a serious dilemma.

Should Datuk Seri Abdullah accede to their demands, other political parties within the BN are likely to follow suit with their own demands, further weakening his political standing.

Should he refuse, it would provide enough reason for disgruntled component parties in the BN to seriously consider the political carrots Datuk Seri Anwar's Pakatan Rakyat coalition is offering.

Sabah is a fiercely parochial and ethnically diverse state with a history of tossing out incumbent state governments since the early 1970s.

Over the past decade, there has been widespread disenchantment with Umno, because many Sabahans believe that economic opportunities in the state are being dished out to business groups linked to the state's chief minister, Datuk Panglima Musa Aman, and his BN allies in peninsular Malaysia.

Datuk Seri Anwar has promised the BN politicians in Sabah and their counterparts in Sarawak greater autonomy in running their respective governments.

He has also promised to increase the petroleum royalties the state government receives to 20 per cent from the current 5 per cent, a demand Sabah's Datuk Seri Ghapur issued to the BN.

VEILED THREAT

'We have never jumped. We can move by simply forming a new party. Then we can decide where we want to sit...here or there.'
DATUK SERI ABDUL GHAPUR (right), on how Sabah BN MPs could quit the ruling coalition. He was speaking in Parliament and gesturing towards the backbenchers and opposition.

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