When Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president and former chief minister Yong Teck Lee publicly accused some leaders of his state's ruling Barisan Nasional of being 'hasty' in disqualifying him as state assemblyperson after an Election Court decision on an election offence he committed, he must have had good reasons for saying so and must have known why, too.

Firstly, after the redelineation some three years ago of the Likas state constituency, which he had been representing since 1985 (when he was with Joseph Pairin Kitingan's Parti Bersatu Sabah or PBS), Sabah Umno has always wanted that seat. Reason: It's a 65 percent Malay/Muslim-majority constituency.

If the size of its Malay/Muslim racial composition is used as the basis to allocate the seat, then it ought to go to Sabah Umno, first led by a former governor and chief minister Mustapha Harun soon after he dissolved his United Sabah National Organisation (Usno) in the early nineties.

But if it is based on personal popularity, then it is difficult using that ground to take it away from Yong, who enjoys popular support among the constituents.

Even after stepping down as chief minister under the rotation system, he is still active on the ground he runs a mobile clinic that offers free medical, dental and legal services, among others, to constituents and attends to their problems and complaints not only in Likas but also the Gaya parliamentary constituency which Yong will also lose through disqualification on Sept 18.

Who, then, will be the immediate beneficiaries?

Two Umno names mentioned

Since the Sabah state assembly does not intend to call a by-election for the rest of the 16 months left of the life of the present 54-member state assembly, whichever party or whoever is the new candidate being proposed will have to wait till the next state elections.

At least two names of Umno leaders have been frequently mentioned as the prospective candidates businessman Hussain Wahid Dally and lawyer Azir Yahya.

There were in fact a lot of political manoeuvrings before the July 2001 by-election by Umno to nominate one of these men. Top federal BN leadership stepped in to allow Yong to stand again on BN ticket, inspite of a court order nullifying the result of the 1999 state election for Likas.

(Yong first obtained a stay order on the court decision but failed eventually in his attempt before the highest court in the land to reverse the decision. It led to his recent disqualification as state assemblyperson as well as member of parliament for Gaya.)

There are, according to a senior Sabah journalist familiar with the state's power politics over the last two decades, 'several other top state BN leaders who are not unhappy with Yong going.'

Inspite of the easy-style politics of this east Malaysian state, the present Sabah BN camp consists of, as it is often said of politics, some rather strange bedfellows.

Buddies and opponents

Yong's political buddies in the early days of PBS, then in opposition, are now part of the ruling BN, and it is no secret that since their parting of ways, which caused the collapse of the PBS government in the early 1990s, feelings are different now between them.

"There is a great mutuality of feelings, especially when considering that Yong when he was still in PBS was one of the party largely instrumental in PBS pulling out of the BN in the first place , a move that Dr Mahathir found difficult to forgive for a long time," one PBS leader who asked not to be identified said somewhat sarcastically when speaking to malaysiakini by phone from Kota Kinabalu.

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader and present chief minister Chong Kah Kiat, who started in politics in the days of the late Tun Fuad Stephens and later Harris Salleh's Parti Berjaya together with other young leaders like Joseph Pairin Kitingan, is also known not to be close to Yong.

Yong is also known not to be close to another Kadanzan-dusun party UPKO leader Bernard Dompok, the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department and a former Sabah chief minister under the rotation system.

Sabah BN, especially Umno, is now likely to put its demand across to the top BN leadership that it be invited to nominate the candidate for Likas, given its new racial composition, and possibly Gaya parliamentary seat too in future elections.

Yong is however expected to resist both attempts, but may now find itself lucky if it gets to keep one, likely to be Gaya, which may go to SAPP deputy leader Tham Nyit Sin, one of the deputy chief ministers and the minister in charged of industrial development.

Tham, as a member of Chong Kah Kiat's cabinet, had to take a different line, ostensibly on Yong's directive, when the cabinet took a decision more than a year ago on a Sabah lottery issue.

President's post affected?

The operating company had been given a licence by the federal authorities to operate in Sabah, but required local permits to start operations. SAPP took a different stand on the issue, but in the end the cabinet's decision prevailed, and the company was granted local permits to begin operations in Sabah.

The question has also been raised as to whether the election court decision disqualifying Yong from continuing as elected representatives can also affect his position as party president.

In his immediate reaction to the Sabah state assembly's decision to follow up on the election court's judgment and declare him no longer a state assemblyperson, Yong was quoted as saying: "While the final outcome relating to the Likas seat might not be in dispute, I am personally curious why there is such an urgency in declaring the seat vacant."

According to the SAPP leader, the state assembly should have waited because of a pending election petition against the result of the July 2001 Likas by-election (which Yong won).

"The election court in Kota Kinabalu has yet to make a ruling or judgment on the validity of the Likas by-election. Any declaration on the seat looks like pre-empting the election court," he was also quoted as saying.

TONY THIEN is malaysiakini correspondent in Kuching, Sarawak.