By Mohd Khairy Abdullah @ DG Henry
SOOK (Sabah, Malaysia) Sept 11, 2025 – Sabah politics once again faces a stern test ahead of the 17th State Election (PRN-17). The division of seats between the two main blocs, Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), has become an increasingly difficult polemic to resolve. PH comprises UPKO, PKR, DAP and Amanah, while GRS brings together eight parties including Gagasan Rakyat, PBS, STAR and SAPP. This situation turns Sabah into a democratic laboratory in Southeast Asia, where multi-party political experiments are constantly being tested.
As usual, each party claims to have strong grassroots influence to justify its demand for more seats. Yet past experience shows that the bargaining process often degenerates into internal quarrels. Consequently, independents emerge – some secretly sponsored by certain parties – with the sole purpose of undermining their own coalition partners. This phenomenon is no longer a secret in Sabah politics and has recurred since the 1980s.
Amid negotiations that rarely find common ground, a radical yet practical approach has emerged: the “free for all” theory.
Under this formula, parties are no longer bound by rigid seat allocations. Instead, each party is free to contest under its own symbol, in any constituency it deems winnable, leaving the final mandate entirely in the hands of the people. Only candidates with genuine grassroots support will ultimately prevail.
For some analysts, this approach is seen as a form of “natural filtration” – a political mechanism that eliminates compromise candidates and elevates authentic leaders more deeply rooted in the hearts of voters.
However, the free for all theory is not without risks. It may cause government bloc votes to split, inadvertently paving the way for easy victories by opponents. Similar situations have occurred in past elections, when overlapping candidacies within the same coalition weakened collective strength and handed opportunities to rivals.
Comparable dynamics can be found elsewhere. In Israel and Italy, for instance, multi-party systems dominated by small parties frequently produce fragile governments, as disputes over seat distribution prevent lasting agreements. Sabah could face a similar outcome if free for all ends up creating confusion rather than resolution.
On the other hand, if implemented openly and honestly, free for all may provide a genuine way out of the entrenched culture of “negotiated seats” that often traps coalitions. It could even usher in a new era of Sabah politics – more democratic and mature – where the people, rather than party elites at the negotiation table, become the ultimate arbiters.
Crucially, Sabah’s political experiment could serve as a global reference. In many democracies, disputes over seat allocations within coalitions have triggered internal fractures.
In India, for example, overlapping contests among coalition partners have weakened major blocs like the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), often handing victories to their opponents. In Indonesia, the multi-party system at the regional level has normalized “intra-coalition battles,” where only truly popular candidates survive.
If Sabah’s free for all approach succeeds, it could shape an alternative democratic model in Southeast Asia – one that emphasizes candidate merit over party elite power. It may even be described as a “tropical version” of competitive democracy in Asia: open, fierce, yet ultimately determined by the people themselves.
In a world increasingly skeptical of political compromise, Sabah’s free for all theory offers a new discourse: a politics that is more transparent, competitive, and honest, with the people as the final judge.
