If not for two Independent candidates - Chong Hon Min (Sandakan) and John Ghani (Kuala Penyu) - Barisan Nasional would have made a clean sweep of all 60 state and 25 parliamentary seats in Sabah during the 11 th general election.

The question now is whether - and how - the opposition can recover after being routed. There will be plenty of time for them to ponder the questions being asked of them, as they regroup and reorganise.

Political observers see national-level opposition parties as the first choice of those Sabahans seeking to vent their anger or frustration at the ruling coalition. Home-grown opposition parties are very much seen as a distant second in terms of effective representation.

In the elections, Keadilan fielded 25 candidates while DAP named eight to contest. The opposition ranks were joined by candidates from local parties like Pasok and Setia.

And, of course, there was a large contingent of Independents, albeit in a nominal sense - a number of them were deemed to be proxies of BN component parties, who chose to contest on their own after they failed to make it to the coalition's candidacy list.

Some now expect that the influence of Keadilan and DAP will fizzle out, leaving only local opposition parties to carry on the fight.

Long break

Keadilan's Christina Liew was the only opposition candidate to have come closest to giving the BN a good fight in the Chinese-majority state seat of Luyang, in the heart of Kota Kinabalu city.

This lawyer, who is based in Kota Kinabalu, claimed that the writing was on the wall by 4pm on polling day for BN candidate Melanie Chia, a UK-trained economist and former senator.

However, she said her chances dissipated because of what she described as "black magic", which caused her to lose by 2,148 votes to Chia, the Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp) vice-president.

"We were already on the way to winning," Liew claimed, when contacted.

However, the BN win is indicative of continuing support for Sapp led by former Chief Minister Yong Teck Lee who did not contest because of a legal disqualification following election offences in 1999.

Liew alleged that many voters could not find their names in the electoral roll, and that this had deprived her of many votes.

"I received SMS from many people who told me that they consider me their representative. I have lost on paper, but in spirit I have won because the 3,784 who voted for me and Keadilan comprise many professionals such as doctors, engineers and lawyers," she said.

"I don't know where the other candidate got her votes. It was as if there was black magic. I cannot go into the details, but they were capable of doing a lot of things just to win."

While Liew said she was not disheartened by the outcome, she said she would take a three-month break after which she would reorganise matters in the party.

Different leanings

DAP Kota Kinabalu branch chairperson Dr Hiew King Cheu, who lost in both the Kota Kinabalu parliamentary constituency and Inanam state constituency, claimed that state BN chairperson Musa Aman's statement in Kudat had influenced voters.

Musa had allegedly told voters that there would not be any more development unless they voted in the BN.

Speaking to malaysiakini in Kudat on Sunday, where he said he was gathering more evidence, Hiew said DAP has lodged a police report against Musa and filed a complaint with the Election Commission about his statement.

DAP, which had at least three MPs in Sabah from the 1970s to the 1980s, has been trying in vain to make a comeback. According to observers, the party suffers from an image problem because some local leaders have had different political leanings.

For example, Hiew, the de facto DAP leader in Sabah, had been a member of at least two BN component parties in the past.

(Similarly, Keadilan's Liew used to be a member of Parti Bersatu Sabah, while some principal office-bearers of Setia and Pasok have left their parties after their dismal electoral performance.)

Without an opposition member in either the state assembly or representing Sabah in the Parliament, DAP and Keadilan now have to operate outside the chambers.

For the next five years, they will only be able to speak through the media and at the grassroots, biding their time until the general election comes around again.