Sabah maverick politician Dr Jeffrey Kitingan, who led the unsuccessful Sabah Independents Front (SIF) into the 11th general election, has made it clear that his group's struggle in politics "is far from over."

Speaking to malaysiakini today, he said the fight to protect state's rights, including the rights of native Sabahans as enshrined in the state and federal constitutions "still remains the basis of our political struggle."

Jeffrey contested but lost by a narrow margin of about 360 votes to Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) leader Joseph Kurup in the Sook state constituency in a multi-cornered contest during the general election on March 21.

He has alleged unfair election practices, saying that he was gathering evidence before filing an election petition to annul the election result. Legal action via the courts can only be filed after all election results have been gazetted on April 12.

Jeffrey is the brother of former Sabah Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan, who heads Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), the second largest party in Sabah's nine-member ruling coalition.

On his immediate plans, he said he planned to publish a book on the state's rights, hold forums and seminars to highlight them and to make their voices heard outside the elected chambers.

He claimed that Sabahan natives, especially the largely-Christian Kadanzandusun-Murut (KDM) community, have been 'politically disadvantaged' after the re-delineation of electoral boundaries. This, he said, led to a proportionate reduction of KDM-majority seats compared with the Muslim/Malay-majority seats.

Power weightage

The three KDM-based parties - PBS, Upko and PBRS - control a combined total of 20 or about 33 per cent of the 60 state assembly seats, although they comprise more than 60 per cent of the state's three million population.

Umno forms the largest single party with 33 seats and the rest belong to Chinese-based parties the Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp), the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the MCA.

"The idea of EC's re-delineation exercise was aimed at the scrapping of the rotation system for the state's chief minister's post by giving Umno more seats," Jeffrey claimed.

All state BN parties agreed in writing to abolish the rotation system when Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced his new cabinet line-up recently. Upko and PBRS, as well as Sapp later, said they had agreed to this in exchange for a new power-sharing formula of 4:4:2 at the state exco between the Muslim/Malay community, KDM and the Chinese communities.

Jeffrey said he was concerned as the increased political power weightage favouring Umno had increasingly shifted major decision-making to Kuala Lumpur, especially with the state's dependence on financial aid for development from the federal government.

"As far I'm concerned, I think the state will also be subservient to the Umno leadership," he added.