Jumper

No, I'm not talking about this movie...

I'm not talking about the song by this band either...

It actually has a little something more to do with this little fella...

It's been nearly a month since the 2008 Malaysian general election and yet, people are still talking about it.

Hey, what is there to NOT talk about? Barisan Nasional suffered it's biggest defeat and actually lost Penang, Perak, Selangor AND Kedah in addition to Kelantan.

And word is the political tsunami might not be over... people are talking about a second wave... and guess where the attention is focused upon?

East Malaysia! Or more specifically, Sabah!

Thanks to the infamous Kataks of 1994 (when PBS won 25 seats and formed the state government in Sabah only to have it crumble because 21 of its assemblymen defected to Barisan), now the Land Below The Wind is seen as the Land of the Kataks instead.

Despite it being 14 years ago, it is still fresh on everyone's mind. Heck, a colleague of mine immediately pinpointed Sabah when talking about possible defections to the "opposition" PKR-DAP-PAS pakatan rakyat (People's Pact) to topple the Barisan government.

And no matter how much assurances the Sabahan leaders give regarding their MPs' and assemblymen's unending loyalty, the still-ruling coalition (or at least its leaders) still seem a bit paranoid that the frogs might be in hiding.

Sabahan leaders right now are either being defensive because all eyes are on them to see if they jump under the circumstances OR actually agree with the notion that the Sabahan elected reps could jump ship anytime based on the past infamous defection.

Then we have the proposals from their peers in the peninsula to pass an anti-hopping law to prevent such defections.

A bit of irony here, as pointed out by various parties, as it was the Barisan Nasional that disagreed with such a law in the first place when PBS proposed it during the latters' time as an "opposition party."

And now, the Prime Minister himself wants to meet the Sabahan elected reps (and the Sarawakian ones too) to discuss how they could play a bigger role at the Federal level.

Let's see... I'm not an expert when it comes to political issues but shouldn't the Prime Minister have thought about that before he announced his Cabinet lineup, which didn't seem to have much changes in terms of representations from the East Malaysian states.

Think about it, it's like having a team of athletes from the entire country take part in a sporting event but sadly, many of them from the peninsula lost.

Yet when it was time to acknowledge the athletes, the ones who seemed to have brought back the most medals weren't given due recognition.

And then a couple of weeks later, the man at the top finally decides to ask the neglected winners what could be done for them.

Do you think the neglected winners will feel very grateful now with the sudden attention?

The next few weeks should be interesting. We'll get to see if there really are still any frogs in Sabah (and maybe Sarawak too).

You never know which coconut shell they might be hiding under.

You never know who the katak might be. At least I don't.

note to self: stop writing about politics...