By Admin ADB
For the Defenders of the Philippine Sabah & Spratly Claims
30 January 2013
MALAYSIANS ARE ASKING: "Why quiet about Dr Mahathir’s confession?"
The "confession" is all about the "role" of the former prime minister of Malaysia in the citizenship-for-votes scandal in Sabah that has rocked Malaysia. The report is actually misleading because if I am to believe some of the rather influential people I met in KL, the leader who engineered the scheme was Mr Mahathir himself. It was his "baby" so to speak. He was the brain behind it!
I first talked about this citizenship-for-votes -- although without exactly using those words, to the same group of Admins here a couple of years ago when we were first setting up a Sabah forum with some people (who, fortunately, we discovered early enough to be as degrading con artists as PM Mahathir was.)
The 'citizenship-for-votes' was a scheme that Dr Mahathir hatched and put in place in Sabah to ensure UMNO election in the province that would give the coalition control of Malaysia Parliament. I discovered this in the 90s in KL through people I knew there who were in politics and in business (most of them were in both -- the two sectors were inseparable) who were 'in the know' -- it was a kind of an open secret. But no one, absolutely no one in Malaysia politics - or big business for that matter, would dare speak of it publicly out of fear of the all-powerful Mahathir whose men in the Treasury held the purse strings for the party, for government contracts and for almost anything.
Sabah was the gold mine of votes for UMNO for PM Mahathir then. Without Sabah's votes -- hence the distribution of Malaysia ID cards, the coalition headed by BN would have collapsed in the Malaysia Parliament. UMNO was on tenuous ground following the resignation of Hussein Onn in 1981, PM Mahathir's predecessor. Mahathir knew that if a solution was not found, UMNO coalition would explode -- and if UMNO exploded, Barisan Nasional, his party had no chance of controlling Parliament.
The scheme was simple: UMNO rounded up most displaced Filipinos who had fled the Mindanao Secession War in the 70s and who had more or less integrated in the Sabah way of life and offered them citizenship. In exchange, they would vote UMNO in the elections. It worked. Mahathir won 5 consecutive general elections giving him the majority in Malaysia Parliament. I have every reason to believe that the 'citizenship-for-votes' in Sabah existed up to the early 90s (especially after his deputy and rising political star Anwar Ibrahim began to give him a run for his money and began to contest his leadership.)
In the 90s when I began visiting Sabah, I met several Sabahanos who fled to Sabah following the Mindanao Secession War. A few of those with whom I became friends admitted that they were benificiaries of the Mahathir citizenship-for-votes scheme. They had no choice -- they felt vulnerable and so accepted PM Mahathir's/UMNO's largesse in order to be able to stay in Sabah "legally."
Malaysia press hasn't got the 'bite' that Philippine media enjoys and they will find it very difficult to expose the extent of the citizenship-for-votes scheme that Mahathir had organised. According to one Basilan-born Sabahan leader I know and with whom I have remained in contact, he reckons, not counting Indonesians, that there were tens of thousands of Filipinos who had taken advantage of the citizenship-for-votes scheme of Mahathir. He told me that during the general election, it was amusing to see that the queus of voters in the polling stations were mostly people from Mindanao.
Sabah and Sarawak represent the most number of seats in the Malaysia parliament with Sabah delivering every election the most votes for UMNO -- not sure anymore how many (if I remember rightly they were in the 40s) but enough to maintain UMNO majority at election time; this is why Sabah is so important to BN (Barisan National or National Front) leaders who make up the majority in the UMNO coalition which then dominates the Malaysia Parliament.
Sabah votes were Mahathir's Malaysia Parliament lifeline without which his UMNO coalition had a poor chance of obtaining control of Parliament. In fact, even today, PM Najib, who lost in his own hometown in a recent election, without Sabah's gold mine of votes, there is every chance that UMNO, let alone BN, will not win the number of seats necessary to give him the majority of seats in Malaysia Parliament.
Incidentally, in the late 70s, a group of ethinc Chinese businessmen in Sabah tried to organise a "secession" movement and declare an independent Sabah. The repression was ruthless. Some Sabahanos who were originally displaced Filipinos were part of the movement (I know a couple of them very well) but when offered amnesty, they accepted and supported UMNO instead.
Now as to Free Malaysia Today's question: Why quiet about Dr M’s confession?
The answer is simple: PM Najib is still a recipient of the Sabah votes by those who took advantage of Mahathir's citizenship-for-votes scheme. Many of the members of BN today as well as some of the Chinese-Malaysian stalwarts of UMNO sitting in Parliament are also beneficiaries.
Why quiet? Because there is also a risk that if they insist on examining the scheme, Malaysia authorities might open cans and cans of worms that will expose not only the number of people who had been granted Malaysia citizenship for votes but also the long held secret that Mahathir even encouraged the emigration of Filipinos and Indonesians to Sabah with a view to populating Sabah with Malays predominantly to prevent the Chinese (and Indian) population from gaining ground in Sabah politically.
But I have a deep seated suspicion that there is more to just preventing the Chinese (and Indian) population from controlling Sabah one day -- Mahathir's scheme, I am confident, had something to do too with ensuring that the Philippine Sabah claim would be buried forever.
Originally posted on : Philippine Sabah Claim Forum
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REPORT: Why quiet about Dr M’s confession?
By Joseph BingkasanJanuary 29, 2013Free Malaysia Today
Tuarasn MP Wilfred Bumburing is wondering why the Sabah Umno deputy chief is silent on the former premier's admission regarding the IC issue.
KOTA KINABALU: Pro-opposition Angkatan Perubahan Sabah (APS) has taken state Umno deputy chief Salleh Said Keruak to task for being quick to criticise the opposition but not former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad who admitted his role in the citizenship-for votes scandal that has since rocked the state.
APS president Wilfred Bumburing said Mahathir openly confessed following shocking revelations during the ongoing Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) hearing but Salleh has chosen to ignore this and not challenged the former premier to testify and instead focused on Anwar Ibrahim.
Full story:http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2013/01/29/why-quiet-sbout-dr-ms-confession/
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