When Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad announced recently that the present Sabah Chief Minister Chong Kah Kiat would make way for a Sabah Umno elected representative to take over the helm of the state

leadership o­n March 27 this year, he ended more than just any speculation o­n the possibility of Chong staying o­n till the next state elections due in 2004.

Although it still means a continuity in the rotation system of the chief minister's post every two years, it does not necessary guarantee that things will not change or that the system will not be scrapped.

According to many political analysts in the state, there are ,of course,very good reasons why Sabah Barisan Nasional leaders would want it scrapped. Sabah Umno itself is probably the strongest advocate of that, even though their party president Mahathir was the o­ne who introduced it in the first place, as a way to find a temporary solution to the perennial problems of internal squabbling within the ruling coalition.

Sabah had lived with two chief ministers (Mustapha Datu Harun and Harris Salleh) who behaved more like dictators than leaders of a democratically-elected government. It was exactly because everyone thought that being chief minister would bring enormous personal benefit to leaders, and by introducing the rotation system, Mahathir has made sure that not a single leader in the state stays in the seat of power long enough to become dictatorial and corrupt .

Prove his worth

Because everyone knows he o­nly has two years to prove himself, a chief minister appointed under that system would set out to prove his worth and capabilities as a leader.

Chong Kah Kiat, a lawyer-politician, has been able to show his real mettle, that he is a workaholic and truly dedicated to his job as chief executive of the state.

"Chong is in his office early and goes home late, even taking his files home to work at times," according to his press secretary Mark Kong. " He attends functions o­nly when necessary, and stays at home to finish his office work for the day."

In his nearly two years as chief minister, Chong has become a highly-respected leader in his own right, determined from Day o­ne to get rid of such perennial problems that Sabah has faced, particularly

illegal immigrants, illegal fish bombing and illegal felling of trees.

To a certain, he has succeeded within that short time - to reduce significantly the problem of illegal immigrants, illegal fish bombing (which is related to the first problem because of the large number of illegal immigrants) and illegal felling of trees,especially in national parks.

Also, his cabinet colleagues has a lot of admiration for Chong for his dedication and determination to resolve some of Sabah's serious problems, and he (Chong) has been fortunate that the Federal government has backed him in his programmes.

Mosquito party

It is an open secret that Chong, leader of the mosquito party Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which has o­nly two state seats, is a close pal of former Chief Minister and leader of Parti Bersatu Sabah(PBS) Joseph Pairin Kitingan.

There was talk that although publicly Pairin wants the rotation system scrapped because he thinks it is against the fundamental of parliamentary democracy, he would not mind if Chong's two-year term is extended till the next elections.

Which is why when Chong met up with the prime minister recently to talk about the end of his two-year term, there was so much speculation as to the real purpose of the meeting.

As it turned out, according to Mahathir, he listened and said an Umno leader would take over from March 27. Chong told the prime minister he would be going o­n o­ne-month leave that would carry him to the end of his term.

This means that the decision o­n who will take over from him as chief minister will be made soon. And speculation is that the Umno leader tipped to be Chong's successor is the present Sabah Umno liaison

chief and State Finance Minister Musa Aman.

Sabah UMNO is fractious in the sense that there are several factions,although this is not very apparent, but manoevurings by the central party leadership has ensured that whoever is appointed liaison chief of

UMNO in the state would be in charged, and that man is Musa Aman.

After Dr Mahathir has relinquished his position as Prme Minister in September this year,it is generally thought that his successor the Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will stick to the system - unless he can reign in what is seen by most outsiders as "a rather difficult herd of politicians in Sabah."

Therefore, inspite of the views of many Sabah BN leaders and even with the change of leadership at the national level, there is no guarantee that the rotational system will go and be replaced even with a

maximum five-year term ,as advocated by some of the Sabah parties.

One of the reasons for this no change in the political leadership scenario is that the Federal government is already pumping in a lot of money into the development of Sabah. Sabah ,which o­nce used to be so far ahead of neighbouring Sarawak in terms of physical development, has a lot to catch up, after being engrossed in a series of political squabbles and nearly a decade of opposition rule.

"It will take a while for Sabah political power culture to be transformed, and hopefully the rotational system, even for two-year terms, will help to bring about meaningful changes," o­ne senior Sabah journalist told malaysiakini.

TONY THIEN is malaysiakini correspondent based in Kuching, Sarawak.