BN/PN’s appalling farce played out in Sabah is as good a sign as any how bankrupt Malaysia’s coup coalition has now become.

As evidence pours in of vote buying tactics, not only by the usual candidates and their crews but even officers of the law arrested for handing out cash to communities in time-honoured UMNO-style, a massive exercise in voter suppression is clearly also underway.

On Facebook and thinly disguised in mainstream media, voters are being threatened to stay indoors and avoid casting their vote. Mysterious ‘asymptomatic clusters of Covid’ are being detected across the state.

The person who triggered this situation was the desperate PM8, still without a majority, despite months of bribery, bullying and pork barrel politics. By toppling the key Warisan stronghold that has helped deny Moo his majority the back-door coup leaders hoped to seize the federal seats they need to have any credibility in Parliament.

To pull off their plan a slew of corruption charges were first dropped against the shameless ex-chief minister, Musa Aman, who then attempted to lead a local coup in the same way that states have been toppled on the Peninsular, by wooing MPs to abandon their parties  in return, as many have complained, for blatant offers of bags of cash.

When Chief Minister Shafie fought back by calling to allow the people to decide, Musa and his crew attempted to foil the democratic process through the courts – and failed. So, now PN/BN are faced with the people’s wrath in an election they had pretended they wanted but then tried to avoid in favour of their signature method for gaining power, another back-door coup.

Unsurprisingly, Sabah is looking set to vote emphatically to show these shysters who is boss. Who would not want to punish the rogues who let a criminal off his charges so as to place him back as state leader – ready to kowtow to UMNO in KL and start plundering once more?

The failure of the coup made Musa a toxic choice for elected leader. However, PM8 has continued to campaign with him at his side, a clear indication that Musa can bank on a non-elected position should the coup conspirators manage to buy and manipulate themselves past the people’s fury and into office.

In such an event, as PM8’s logic goes, he will at last manage to strong-arm those Sabah MPs to behave like the docile GPS flunkeys from Sarawak.

It’s not looking likely to go that way. Which means as financial clouds continue to gather over a country now listed by banks as one of the most notorious havens for laundered money and corrupted practice, Muhyiddin looks set to continue to preside over a zero majority of MPs in Parliament – with zero credibility and zero appetite to call an election that would wipe him out.

In fact, legally PM8 is already leading only a minority because in yet another blatant violation of the constitution by this government the convicted felon Najib Razak is being allowed to continue sitting as an MP solely because without him ‘Moo’s’ numbers fall to 111 – a minority in the house.

Even compared to the several other violations and malpractices got away with so far by Muhyiddin and his gang, this one stands out. Najib has not been controversially convicted of whistleblowing in the public interest or on a trumped up charge, but of stealing millions of public money in a global corruption case and he faces further charges that run into billions.

The constitution is completely clear on the point, appeal or no appeal. Article 48. (1) (e) states:

48. (1) Subject to the provisions of this Article, a person is disqualified for being a member of either House of Parliament if………

(e)  he has been convicted of an offence by a court of law in the Federation .. and sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than one year or to a fine of not less than two thousand ringgit and has not received a free pardon;