THE CONTINUING DOMINANCE OF BARISAN NASIONAL IN SABAH IN THE 13TH GENERAL ELECTIONS

The article deals with Sabah political developments after the just concluded 13th General Election. The main focus is on the hegemonic dominance of Barisan Nasional (BN), and also the ability of opposition parties, especially Pakatan Rakyat (PR), although they failed to form a government, in securing several seats in areas ethnically dominated by the Kadazandusun and Murut (KDM) as well as the Chinese. It is argued that BN s recipe in maintaining a two-thirds majority was largely associated with its development theme (as a political strategy) that was strongly projected throughout the whole election campaign. Whereas for the opposition parties, the encouraging performance was due to the bombardment of voters with issues very much related to Sabah s autonomy in the federal structure including the 20 points, illegal immigrants, native lands, and others. In analysing the hegemonic dominance of BN, a Gramscian conceptual framework of hegemony-federalism will be employed. The employment of this approach is found suitable to the multi-ethnic society of Sabah, the majority of whom have given consent to a dominant party based on political consociationalism in guiding their leadership structure within the context of federalism.