"I DON'T care any more. I used to care but others don't care, so why should I care?" a friend blurted out last week when the subject of the general election cropped up.
An ominous sign of voter apathy? Not exactly. This voter will still vote, "but for the opposition". What does that mean?
Wouldn't you vote to strengthen GPS (the Gabungan Parti Sarawak state ruling coalition) as a potential federal kingmaker, I asked. "Yes", came his answer.
Perhaps it's a sign of the times that "opposition" is not what it used to connote, at least in Sarawak.
There is a hankering for "political stability" after we went through three prime ministers in the just-ended parliamentary term.
The toll is not just on national politics but policy uncertainties and the dreaded "political risks" as investors calibrate whether putting down money in the country in the long term is worth the risk.
The ringgit may be down in tandem with other regional currencies owing to the strength of the US dollar, but absent our current bout of "political risks", might it not have dipped as far as it has?
Thus, the issue of "political stability" is likely to be front and centre as GPS makes its debut in parliamentary elections, having opted out of the long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) when it was ousted in the 2018 general election.
This is viewed by many in Sarawak, on hindsight, as an inspired move, divorcing the state from the vagaries of national politics.
A clarion call for this was sent out on Oct 16 by caretaker Senior Works Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof, who was also the GPS whip in the just-dissolved Parliament.
"Now we need an even bigger voice because political stability can be achieved only with the contribution from Sarawak," he said in Kuching.
Fadillah should know what he is talking about. He was works minister before the 2018 general election, but made way for fellow Sarawakian Baru Bian when Pakatan Harapan (PH) took over, only to return after the second and third changes in government post-2018.
As this happened, the signature Pan-Borneo Highway project initiated on his watch faced delays under PH and then the pandemic.
The costs of the delays are being quantified.
GPS got the unusual taste of being in the opposition for two years when PH governed. But the state coalition then attained welcome leverage to stake an outsized claim on cabinet representation in the two administrations that followed.
However, this was a Pyrrhic victory. GPS' parliamentary representation had been reduced by the nationwide swing to PH in 2018.
Its 18 seats, though decent, did not buy the Perikatan Nasional (PN)-BN and BN-PN administrations convincing-enough majorities.
So, will the thirst for more solid parliamentary majorities (long-accustomed to two-thirds majorities may be truly a thing of the past) result in GPS snaring a bigger share of the 31 parliamentary seats in Sarawak?
That depends on how GPS component party SUPP fares. Will it be stuck with a lone MP again? The party had a good outing in the last state election, reducing DAP to just two state representatives.
There is thus the hope that this good fortune will last and SUPP will win more parliamentary seats for GPS.
Unless SUPP, which fields candidates in mostly urban and Chinese-dominant constituencies, succeeds in pulling its weight in GPS and nationally, the unhealthy perception will persist that any PH-led government relies more on Chinese voters while a non-PH one is almost wholly dependent on non-Chinese ones.
How this Gordian knot and political zero-sum game is unravelled or not may continue to dictate whether we attain political stability and maturity going into the 15th General Election.
The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching