COMMENT | For days after Sabah’s political collapse, political pundits and the social media chattering classes have performed an elaborate dance around the central question: who is responsible?

Party officials blame “local dynamics”. Coalition partners whisper vaguely about “unique Sabah conditions”. Federal voices hide behind the evergreen cliché that “Sabah is unpredictable”.

Yet, the simplest, most unavoidable truth is the one almost everyone refuses to articulate: Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim bears responsibility for the defeat.

This is not to say that he engineered the loss, but because...