Either way, the Sabah's chief ministership rotation issue is likely to end with new problems giving another headache for Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

According to a senior Sabah journalist who was very much in the thick of things at the last state elections, when the then chief minister Bernard Dompok suffered a shock defeat at the hands of the opposition Parti Bersatu Sabah's (PBS), Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi visited him at home in Kota Kinabalu and made a promise.

Abdullah, it seems, had told Dompok that since he had lost and would not be able to complete his two-year term as chief minister and since the Barisan Nasional's Kadazandusun-based parties fared very badly in the elections, a Muslim/Malay would be appointed as chief minister to carry on.

At the same time, according to the source, the deputy prime minister said a Kadazandusun or non-Muslim bumiputra would be appointed chief minister again after the Muslim/Malay chief minister completed his two-year term.

Malaysiakini understands that Upko leader Bernard Dompok would want to hold on to the BN leader's word that indirectly implied then the chief ministership rotation system would continue after Osu Sukam has served out his full two-year term as chief minister which ends on March 13 this year.

Defectors

Dompok is an elected member of parliament and a federal minister, but his party has only two state assemblymen. It is learnt that he has put forward the name of Wences Anggang, a former planter and a state minister, as candidate for the post of the state's new chief executive replacing Osu Sukam.

Dompok's party is known to have a dislike for the other Kadazandusun-based Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) led by Joseph Kurup, a deputy chief minister in the last PBS government led by Joseph Pairin Kitingan in the 1980s.

Kurup himself lost in the last state elections but was later made a nominated member of the state assembly which is allowed under the state constitution. And his six other state assemblyman members of the party are defectors from Pairin's PBS, including Pairin's own brother Dr Jeffrey Kitingan.

PBRS is pushing hard for one of their men to be appointed the next chief minister but it is widely known that there is a lot of opposition to this, including from Upko and several other parties.

Sabah Umno has been campaigning openly for their man Osu Sukam to carry on on the basis that there is no longer any reason to retain the rotation system because the choice of the candidate for the post must naturally come from Umno which has the most number of seats in the state assembly.

Logical

In recent days, after meeting Sabah BN leaders from the various component parties and after which news and information leaked to the media, Dr Mahathir is now accepting the fact that he may have to scrap the whole idea of continuing with rotating the chief minister's post among the three major racial groups.

Instead, he has been asked by Umno to allow the rules of democracy to play, which means that because Umno commands the largest number of seats and that the Kadazandusun parties fared poorly in the last elections, it will only be logical for Osu Sukam or a Muslim Malay to remain as chief minister.

According to some observers, while Dr Mahathir as Umno president can get Sabah Umno to accept whatever decision he has made concerning the rotation issue, he cannot obviously ignore the fact that the very issue itself has brought the various parties together under the BN in Sabah and helped to marginalise PBS.

One option that he may consider is ask Osu Sukam to step down on March 13 and appoint a Kadazandusun either from Upko or PBRS as the new chief minister to complete the full two-year term or until the next state elections is held.

This would mean that the non-Muslim bumiputra groups would already have enjoyed as many terms as the Muslim bumiputras.

Alternatively, Dr Mahathir could bend a little and say that after the next non-Muslim bumiputra has served his term out as chief minister, any agreement on the rotational system would no longer apply. Instead the component party with the largest number of state seats would lead and nominate the candidate for the chief minister's post.

Sabah Umno is unlikely to be happy with any of the two options because it means Osu Sukam has to step down in March which is not what they want because the campaign is to get the system scrapped immediately.

Dr Mahathir's headache is that he has to consider what is likely to happen should the non- bumiputra group fail to take their turn and whether it will result in an exodus of elected Kadazandusun assemblymen to the opposition ranks - something which should never be discounted in Sabah politics.

Unlikely

The Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp) led by Yong Teck Lee had its chance in the past when Yong served for two years as chief minister before Dompok. He stepped down willingly. But it is understood that Sapp is keen to stick to the rotation system because it sees this as an important factor in keeping the Sabah BN parties together.

Talk is that Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader Chong Ka Kiat, a former federal minister and now a state minister, is a possible candidate for the post. "Although this is a possibility , it is however unlikely to happen because if the rotation system is still retained then the post has to go to either an Upko man (Wences) or PBRS man (Jeffrey Kitingan)," said one veteran political observer in Sabah.

The system that Dr Mahathir formulated to try and keep the somewhat 'unwieldy' Sabah parties together under the BN is giving him new problems.

"Perhaps he should leave it to Abdullah Badawi to solve," the same observer commented, adding that Mahathir may already have his hands full in trying to tackle national problems what with the Umno-PAS talks already scuttled and its repercussions and reactions on the ground.

TONY THIEN is a freelance writer based in Kuching.