PETALING JAYA: Independent research firm Ilham Centre said Bersatu’s wipe-out in Sabah was the inevitable result of a fatally flawed campaign strategy, adding that the party entered the state polls with unknown candidates, no machinery and almost no time to build credibility.
Its executive director Hisommudin Bakar described the Perikatan Nasional (PN) campaign as one of the coalition’s gravest electoral miscalculations.
He said Bersatu and PN entered the polls from a weak position, fielding largely unknown candidates in constituencies in which the coalition had no established grassroots presence.
“When we examined our Sabah field data, we found that this was a critical mistake,” he told theSun.
He said a survey conducted by Ilham Centre showed a clear voting pattern in Sabah; about 60% of voters made their choices based on the credibility and performance of individual candidates, while 20% voted on issues and the remaining 20% on party identity.
“This shows candidate evaluation is the most influential factor.”
He added that because of this, PN’s strategy was fundamentally flawed, adding that many of its candidates were unknown to the electorate and were introduced too late in the campaign cycle.
“Sabah voters expect to see individuals who have been working on the ground well in advance. By the time PN entered the race, they were already behind everyone else.”
He also said PN should have reorganised immediately after the mass resignation of Sabah Bersatu leaders in December 2022.
“Sabah PN chairman Datuk Ronald Kiandee should have restructured the party early on. But preparation only began two months before the election.”
Hisommudin said two months was “far too short” to build credibility in a political environment in which even independent candidates had spent more than two years cultivating local support.
“Some PN candidates were only informed they were contesting on the very night the candidate list was finalised. So, effectively, they had only two weeks of the official campaign period to introduce themselves.”
He added that the timeframe was expected to repair PN’s “damaged brand” in Sabah while promoting late-entry candidates, a task he labelled “impossible”.
“Logically, that cannot be achieved. Not when the campaign machinery is already under strain.”
He also said PN further weakened its position by contesting 42 seats, stretching its resources and logistics beyond practical limits.
“They went into battle against two better-resourced machines, the federal government and the state government, without any electoral arrangement.”
He said this time, three-cornered and four-cornered contests became standard.
“PN failed to position itself competitively against GRS, BN and Warisan. As a result, it ended up as the weakest performer.”
He also criticised the absence of early groundwork, seat popularity studies and candidate profiling.
“They did not identify strategic seats or prepare candidates early.
“From what I observed in a previous podcast, PN’s internal conflicts overshadowed preparations for the Sabah (polls). Their focus was more on internal polemics than electoral strategy.”
In the 17th Sabah state election, Bersatu, contesting under the PN banner, lost in all 33 seats it contested.
PN component party Gerakan was defeated in all three of its seats, while PAS secured one win out of the five seats it contested. – By Ikhwan Zulkaflee
