The return of the largely Christian-based Kadazandusun-Murut (KDM) community to the Barisan Nasional government's side after years of topsy-turvy politics in this east Malaysian state has been largely credited to Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS).

PBS, the second largest party in the state's nine-member ruling coalition, has 13 members in the 60-member state legislative assembly, and four out of the 25 parliamentary seats in Sabah following the 11th general election last month.

Before this, on its rejoining the ruling BN, it had its first opportunity of showing it could effectively deliver KDM votes - making up about 65 percent of Sabah's three million population - to the ruling coalition last year's Gaya (now renamed Kota Kinabalu) parliamentary constituency by-election.

In this Chinese-majority seat, KDM votes gave the BN candidate from Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp) a large majority when the Chinese electorate registered, for a variety of reasons, a low turnout, with a large percentage of the Chinese votes going to the opposition, especially DAP.

Even the then Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad acknowledged the KDM's hardcore support for PBS leader Joseph Pairin Kitingan who told reporters after the by-election that the result showed KDM supported PBS' decision to rejoin BN and that they wanted to see more progress and development in the interior areas.

After the recent elections, other BN leaders, including the chief minister and state BN chairperson Musa Aman acknowledged as much PBS' role in bringing victory not only within the interior areas, along with two other KDM-based smaller component parties Upko and Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS), but also some urban seats like Kota Kinabalu and Luyang.

Support among Chinese too

A senior KK-based journalist told malaysiakini it was PBS and Pairin and not so much Sapp and its leader Yong Teck Lee that had guaranteed the victory of BN-Sapp's Melanie Chia against Keadilan's Christina Liew in Luyang.

"PBS also has a lot of support among the Chinese," he added. Its Chinese leader Dr Yee Moh Chai's large number of votes in KK is a good indication.

Besides, the three top leaders - Musa Aman, Pairin and Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader Chong Kah Kiat - in the present state BN government enjoy close personal and working relationship. Pairin fills the deputy chief minister's post reserved for the Kadazandusun-Murut community and Chong the slot for the Chinese community, apart from their rural development and tourism portfolios respectively.

For Pairin, who toppled the Harris Salleh's Berjaya government in1986 and served as chief minister for nine years before his party lost through the desertion of some elected representatives to the BN, it is a "second but real opportunity to do something more for the Kadazandun-Murut community."

Speaking to malaysiakini when welcoming a group of travel agents and media writers from Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak recently in Tambunan, his home district, Pairin said he considered his return to the cabinet "as nothing more than a job that has to be done."

The two-hour road journey through one of Sabah's most picturesque countryside (with its cool mountain air), home to the Kadazandusun people, is on a good road that takes one on to Keningau and thence Tenom on a round trip with stops at Beaufort and Papar before returning to Kota Kinabalu, the state capital on the West Coast.

Well known family

The Kitingans are well known in Tambunan which is also known as 'The Land of Bamboos'. Here, every house is made of bamboo and its people's livelihood is dependent on agriculture, especially padi cultivation, in an area said to have the richest soil after Tawau and Sandakan on the East Coast.

The Kitingans are a well-known Tambunan family credited for helping bring an end to the practice of headhunting through peace-making overtures and pacifying erstwhile tribal foes just after the Japanese Occupation in the Second World War.

"The Kitingans helped put an end to tribal conflicts which often saw scores even over trivial matters settled before through such a practice in the past," a tourist guide said.

Not surprisingly, to this day, the family, especially Pairin, are held in high esteem and highly- respected within the community.

"Pairin is PBS and PBS is Pairin," is what many would tell you. "He is the Huguan Siou (paramount chief of the Kadazandusun community). You follow the Huguan Siou."

So his people followed him when PBS went it alone after abruptly pulling out of the BN in1990 and followed him when he and PBS rejoined BN in 2002. That both sides agreed to forgive and forget proved to be a very wise decision and one which had greatly benefitted the people.

Pairin is the eldest in a family of 10 children. One of his brothers Dr Jeffrey Kitingan followed him in his early political struggle but later decided to go his own way. The two brothers still stay in touch as members of the family are closely knitted. Their mother lives in the family house not far from the Tambunan community hall.

Asked if he had talked to the chief minister about the portfolio he preferred before being appointed to the state cabinet recently, Pairin said "no."

Improve people's income

"But from my many public statements, the state BN top leadership has taken a cue of what I want to do for the community. I am happy to accept this appointment in the rural development ministry."

Pairin said one of his top priorties under the ministry would be to help improve the people's income through farming, fishing and livestock breeding. He added that he would look at existing government programmes and see where variations are needed to make them more effective.

A potentially new economic activity is tourism in the interior where the Kadazandusun-Murut are known as one of the culturally exciting and colourful peoples, with their numerous folklores and legends to tell, and their skills in music, dancing and basketry. Tambunan is being promoted as a home-stay village destination.

Pairin is the least bothered or concerned over the on-going debate within certain quarters (both Chinese and KDM) about who should be chief minister or what community he should come from. There is a suggestion that the chief minister's post should only be held by a Bumiputra.

"Follow the state constitution," is what he always tells reporters. Pairin is one of the state leaders who objected in the first place to the rotation system introduced by the former premier Mahathir. "It should not have been there in the first place," he said.

What that means basically is that the state's chief executive should come from the party that commands the majority support in the House, and in this case Umno which has 31 state assemblypersons in the 60-member state legislative assembly is entitled to nominate the chief minister.

While agreeing to the recent scrapping of the rotation system of the chief minister's post among the three main communities, Upko, led by Bernard Dompok, the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department and a former chief minister, and Sapp, led by another former chief minister Yong Teck Lee, said this was conditional upon an acceptable power-sharing formula of 4:4:3 key posts for the Malays/Muslims, KDM and Chinese communities.

Alternatives unclear

But, according to observers, this is based on the assumption that the main political parties would manage to secure all the seats allocated to them for elections.

"What would happen if the Chinese-based parties should lose most of the seats? Or if the KDM-based parties were to find their seats gone to the opposition by half?' one asked.

Writing in his column in the Sabah-based Daily Express , veteran journalist and Harris Salleh's former press aide Mohd Fauzi Patel said: "Since the PM did not mention alternatives (to scrapping the rotation system), it is unclear whether the alternatives (as suggested by some) were accepted.'

"One only hopes that it does not add to more disputes within the BN in future."

He added: "The state BN has to concentrate on development and satisfy the people's high expectations instead of wasting precious time on ways and means of seeking more power for themselves."

In his own regular column in The Borneo Post , former deputy chief minister Dr Herman Luping instead posed a question for Kadazandusun-Murut leaders "to consider in earnest the possibility of uniting under one party."

"There is indeed a strong undercurrent calling for KDM unity and hence the unification of all three KDM-based political parties - PBS, Upko and PBRS," he added.

For most observers, while this looks like something ideal, in practical terms it is difficult, considering that there is a lot of personal mistrust and jealousy among many of the leaders. It may also create unnecessary suspicions too among state Umno leaders.

Pairin, for example, is more than comfortable with the status quo, and without PBS any merger is meaningless, they added.